How to Plant Garden Annuals | Simple Steps to a Gorgeous Garden!

Welcome, I hope you all are doing great. My name is Amanda from Plantarina and I am in this spectacular garden. It is May, almost June, and we are planting annuals. And I want to talk about how to plant an annual because it might seem simple, but there are a few things that you need to know if you're going to plant annuals in your garden. You might be asking yourself, what's an annual? Well, it's a plant that, its life cycle lasts for one season. Sometimes they last a little bit longer if they reseed, but in general, it's a one and done in the plant world. It looks great throughout the season, it adds color, it attracts hummingbirds, bees, and there's something else it attracts that I really like, butterflies. I spaced out, butterflies. Annuals are also really great to fill in holes. Sometimes your perennials don't make it over the winter. Sometimes a rabbit will come in and eat something to the ground. Sometimes it's just, you have a hole in your garden and they are perfect for filling that in very, very quickly. The other thing they're great for is they bloom all summer long and they look fabulous. There are tall ones, there's medium ones, there's short ones, and you just have to figure out where you want to put those types of plants in your garden. Oh, there's another thing I love annuals for, for cuttings, so you can make gorgeous bouquets throughout the entire summer by just snipping back your annuals. And you know what, they want to be snipped back, they need to be pinched back and pruned in order to be full and lush and to generate new blooms. So it's a win-win for you and the plants. The main thing you should consider when you're putting annuals in your garden is how much sun do you have? Most annuals need full sun all day long. There are other annuals that don't, but the majority that you'll find do. So know where they're going in your garden, know how much light you're getting, and when that light ends, and if you have over six hours, I'd say eight hours is best of sunlight, you could put sun-loving annuals in your garden. The other thing you should consider is the height. If you want to put a border of color in front of your garden, try to find annuals that are mounding, spreading, and then don't really get over 12 inches tall because then they'll start overpowering your middle section of your garden. If you're looking for plants to add color and spiky color and cutting flower types of plants, you'd probably want to put those in the center of your garden. Plants like snapdragon, cosmos, dahlias, plants like those do really, really well in the middle of the garden. If you want tall annuals like tibetina that just get big and go crazy, try to put them at the back of the garden or if you have an island garden in the center of your island garden. So look at the tags when you're shopping for annuals and just read how tall they get and that will solve all your problems. The other thing when you're thinking about adding annuals to your garden, you're thinking, well, how many do I need? How many, I have no idea, I've never purchased an annual, I've never planted. You have to just look at the square footage you have in your garden and you can guesstimate if you have, do it by square foot. If you have a square foot, you're gonna wanna put an annual at each corner of that square. So that's about a foot apart. And if you want a dense, dense, instant, lush garden like I like to do, like pack them in, you can plant them closer. So remember, they're gonna get bigger, they're gonna get taller, they're gonna get wider and if you're impatient like I am, just plant them a little closer than a foot. But if you're patient, plant them a foot apart. This is another important fact. I'm gonna say it's a fact because it could really hurt your annuals. If you're planting them too close to shrubs like hydrangeas or spirea or hibiscus, which is a perennial, those perennials and shrubs will get big throughout the year, especially in June and July and might shade them. So try to keep them a little distance from plants that still are going to grow. They're still probably gonna grow another foot or two. Just back off. You have to make sure that your annuals get watered regularly. They're fast growing plants, they're in full sun and they can dry out very quickly. So either have an irrigation system on them or water them daily or when you see them wilting, they really need water. So that's something you have to pay attention to. I highly suggest that you pay attention to the watering. And in terms of fertilizing, because they're fast growing, because they bloom all summer long, which is the best, they require fertilization. So when you're planting them, you can add compost, you can add slow release fertilizer, you can use a foliar spray throughout the summer, once a week. Just keep them happy, keep them boosted, keep them vibrant and they'll keep you looking at them with a smile on your face. The last thing to consider when you're bringing annuals to your garden is that do they need deadheading or are they self deadheading? Are they maintenance free? There's a lot of them that you don't have to prune back and they'll be fine. There are some that you do have to prune back throughout the season to keep them blooming. So those are the considerations you should be thinking of when you're annual shopping. You might grow them from seed too. And if you grow them from seed, you probably don't need to watch this video.