March / April 2000

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Gleanings from the Editor     For the past few years, I have been a perennial snob. That is, I thought that annual plants were somehow beneath my notice. After all, perennials come back year after year. You can count on them to grow larger, more sturdy as the years go by (unless, of course, they just fall over dead). Many of my perennials are evergreen. The rosemary, artemisia, iris, lavender, daisies and others are there season in and season out, covering the dirt and providing a look of life even when there are no flowers.      Somehow I got the peculiar impression that serious gardeners didn’t mess with annuals. Except for food plants, of course, annual tomatoes, peppers, and all the rest of those vegetables were good and proper to have in a respectable garden.      Except, of course for geraniums and pentas. I have to have geraniums. They are the most cheerful and reliable of flowers. They are big and bright and not particularly picky — the sort of flower I prefer. I really believe all geraniums should be red and they should be in pots by the doorway, but that’s just my opinion. I see white, pink, lavender and lots of other colors in geraniums. Whoever buys them must be misinformed.      I have to have pentas for the butterflies. They are obviously one of the main comfort foods in butterfly land. Oh butterflies love the butterfly weed, the coneflowers, the butterfly bush and other plants in my garden, but they simply gorge on the pentas. I like their willingness to continue blooming no matter how hot it gets.      So that was my snooty little approach to annuals. They seemed to be weaklings in the overall gardening scheme.      I had this grand illusion that at some point, my serious perennial garden would become self-tending, self-perpetuating, and, well, perennial. I imagined it could become the natural version of the perpetual motion machine. Every year the flowers and shrubs would come up, grow bigger, crowd out the weeds, flower beautifully in their season, then make room for the next bloomer.      It hasn’t happened. As I sit here in early spring, my perennial garden is out there just begging for attention. The salvia, roses, butterfly weed, lemon marigold, veronica, and who knows what else all need cutting back. The beds are seriously in need of weeding. Everything needs feeding and mulching. Climbing roses need tying up and back. Daffodils need dividing.      Oh I still love all those perennials. They do get better every year for the most part. Some get a little too prolific, like the lemon marigolds and Mexican petunias that want to take over the entire earth.      I realize that the native plants in my garden will still be thriving in the middle of summer when it is hot, dry, and I’m not about to go outside and pamper anything. And I am grateful to them for that.      But this spring I have succumbed to the lure of spring annuals. It’s almost like being seduced against your better judgment. I bought sweet alyssum, petunias, snap dragons, and stocks, all bursting with color and tenderness. Bright red, deep purple, lavender, white, pink — vivid and showy colors just begging for attention.      I decided the best way to indulge this brief affair was to grow my annuals in containers. I know they don’t have the sticking power to become a permanent part of the landscape, but in containers, I can put them right out in front where everyone can see them during their glory time, then when they reveal their inherent weakness of character, they can go directly to the compost pile.      I have been accused of taking things too seriously — things including the garden. Maybe the accuser is right. Maybe it’s time to lighten up a little bit and not worry so much about being PC in terms of which plants I put in my flowerpots.      It is true that native plants need saving, grow better than any other plants, and look good in the middle of the summer. It is true that perennials provide support for wildlife and make up the backbone of any landscape plan. It is true that herbs and perennial flowers are beautiful and often smell good.      But, you know what, it’s also really fun to have a big mass of flowers right at the beginning of spring! After all, we don’t get to have winter any more. We don’t get to have rain. We mostly get to be hot and dry, so why not enjoy an early spring fling with those ne’er do wells, the flowering annual?