Amazing Annuals - Softcover

Hogue, Marjorie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1552093077 ISBN 13: 9781552093078

Publisher: Firefly Books, 1999

Synopsis

Amazing Annuals is the long-awaited guide to the best of these new plants: more than 300 container and garden plants including the newest annuals, the latest bulbs, complete instructions for growing plants from seed to cutting and much more.

Contents

- Introduction

About Annuals
- What is an Annual?
- The Contained Garden

The Plants
- Cutting Edge Annuals
- Tender Perennials Grown from Cuttings
- Tender Bulbs
- Climbers and Trailers
- Flamboyant Foliage
- Annuals Grown from Seed

- Culture and Propagation

- Selected Sources of Annuals
- Glossary
- Index

About this title

About the Author:

Marjorie Mason Hogue

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Introduction

Annuals are often dismissed as boring or second-rate. It's true that certain types of impatiens, petunias and marigolds have definitely been overused, but it's not hard to find exciting new annuals to revitalize your plantings. Have you seen the new yellow seashell impatiens? Or the petunias that cascade 3 feet (1 m) from a window box? Or the tiny "Lemon Gem" marigolds with masses of dime-sized yellow blooms?

Enjoying plants has been a way of life for me since the age of one when I picked all my grandmother's prized double petunias and proudly proclaimed them "Pretty!" My grandmother averted my mother's scolding by telling her that I should never be chastised for loving flowers. My family has been gardening for several generations: I learned to count to 100 with the help of peony buds in my great-grandfather's acre of perennials, which he grew to sell as cut flowers, and I followed my father's footsteps between the rows of vegetables in our market garden.

Much later, after a 13 -year career as a teacher, I decided to enter the field of horticulture full time. I worked in a large garden center for 19 years, during which time I amassed a collection Of 500 varieties of pelargoniums (tender geraniums). Then it was time, with my son's help and my husband's encouragement, to start our own small specialty plant nursery, Mason Hogue Gardens.

We originally focused on hardy perennials and bulbs, but neither my son Jeff nor I can resist trying a new plant when we see it listed in a catalogue. In the last few years there have been so many introductions of tender plants that it's been almost impossible to try them all -- Alonsoa, Anagallis, Angelonia, Anisodontea, Asarina -- the list goes on and on. When customers visit our display gardens, they are excited by the many unusual plants they see and are frequently surprised when they realize that the ones they like best are annuals!

It really is a shame that some of the best flowers in a gardener's palette are overlooked simply because they're not perennials. Much as we love our perennial beds, it is difficult to have masses of bloom all summer long without incorporating some annuals into the scheme. Many great gardens have annuals drifted through the clumps of perennials. Even the famous double border in the Royal Horticultural Society's garden at Wisley in England uses dahlias, cleome, bidens and cosmos in this way.

This is a book for every type of gardener -- the beginner who needs help getting started, the do-it-yourselfer who wants to grow masses of plants from seeds and cuttings, the person who gardens on a small balcony, the creative type who wants a garden different from all the others on the block, even the armchair gardener who just enjoys reading about plants -- but most especially, it's for anyone who has mastered perennials and is now ready to add annuals for the finishing touch.

I have provided detailed descriptions of many different kinds of annuals: annuals grown from cuttings, seeds and bulbs; annuals to grow for their foliage; annuals to climb and trail; and annuals to grow for fragrance. A whole section on container gardening will take you through the exciting process of potscaping, step by step. A chart tells you everything you need to know to cultivate about 180 seed-grown annuals. You can discover how to care for your annual garden and how to reproduce some of your favorite plants in the section on propagation and culture.

To my way of thinking, a truly great garden encompasses all types of plants. Trees and shrubs form the framework and perennials make up the body, but annuals, in the ground and in containers, are the crowning glory.

About this edition

• Publisher: Firefly Books
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 1552093077
• ISBN 13: 9781552093078
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160