Annual Flowers for Container Gardening

Annual flowers – a garden trial of annual flowers and award-winning garden author Doug Green’s picks for his own container gardening adventures http://www.simplegiftsfarm.com/annual-flowers.html

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If you’re going to use Zinnia in the container garden, pick shorter varieties. I note in the video that some varieties are powdery mildew resistant while others will wither and die by the end of the summer in containers.

Similarly, dwarf nicotine Anna is an excellent container plant. It is not fragrant in the dwarf varieties, you need the older taller varieties to get the fragrance. Marigolds and Lantana are excellent in containers for the full, hot sun. Angelonia is being used more and more by container gardening enthusiasts for a full hot sun garden. The old-fashioned petunia in modern incarnations, particularly the Wave series are standard fare for using annual flowers in container gardening.

Begonia ‘Angel Wings’ is an older begonia but is the single most heavily–blooming begonia I know of. It is, without a doubt, my favorite of this family for outdoor growing.

The rules for using annual flowers in container gardening or the same for any other kind of plant with several exceptions. Yes, you need to water them almost daily. Yes, you need to feed them at least weekly. The major difference however is in the pruning.

Annual flowers require a regular weekly pruning to keep them short and bushy. Picking off the spent flowers is necessary on a daily or every second–day basis. My rule of thumb is that when the plant starts to look outstanding, it is time to prune to pinch off to find the growing points that will enable the plant to Bush out even further and look even better.

So picking great annual flowers to suit your conditions is the first step towards success in container gardening.

Doug’s website can be found at http://www.DougGreensGarden.com