Annuals

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Help your Annuals Thrive!
Spacing Annuals
Drought / Moist Tolerant Annuals

Help your Annuals Thrive!
Annuals develop from seed, flower and die in a single growing season. Most annuals bloom non-stop all season. Planting annuals provides great flexibility by allowing you to change the look of your landscape every year or every season. Annuals provide a beautiful show of flowers all summer long. They require a moderate amount of care, regular fertilizer applications, regular watering, and deadheading.

WATER
New plantings of annuals should be watered thoroughly. A liquid plant starter fertilizer may be used to help get the plants off to a faster start. Once established, waterings can be reduced to once a week or when the soil becomes dry.

SOIL
With few exceptions, annuals prefer a warm soil and should not be planted in the spring until the danger of frost is past, May 15th in Minnesota. Pansies, alyssum and snapdragons are the exceptions and will tolerate light frosts and cool soil.

Good soil preparation is essential to success with annuals. Till or spade the soil deeply and add a slow-release flower fertilizer at this time. If drainage is poor, you should consider raising the bed and improving drainage by adding topsoil, compost, peat or other organic matter to the bed. Planters, pots and hanging baskets must have drainage holes and a potting soil that drains well. After planting, mulch will help to control weeds and keep the soil uniformly moist and cool. Another way to prevent weeds is by using chemical weed preventors such as Preen before planting.

FERTILIZER
Fertilizing will provide extra nourishment resulting in improved plant performance. Since annuals produce more blooms than most plants, they require more frequent fertilization, every 10 days to two weeks. Use a regular fertilizer, like a 15-30-15 or a 10-10-10, which you can find here at Wagner's. Always follow label directions when applying fertilizers. It is wise to incorporate both an immediate release and a slow release fertilizer when you are adding organic matter to the soil.

PINCHING BACK & DEADHEADING
Many annuals will benefit from being pinched back at planting time. Just pinch out the top half or so of the growing tip and this will make the plants bush out, producing more flowers through the growing season. Don't be shy; even if you just purchased bedding plants that are in bloom, pinching the tips out will reward you in the long run. Deadheading, the practice of removing faded flowers and seed heads, is good for all annuals and it is especially beneficial for containers and hanging baskets.

Spacing Annuals

Equation
To estimate the number of annuals needed to fill a space, you must first determine the square footage of the space:

• Area of rectangle = Length x Width

• Area of triangle = ½ base x Height

• Area of square = Length x Width or Side

• Area of circle = pr2 or 3.14 x (radius)2

Once you know the square footage, use the following chart to determine how many annuals to purchase.

Drought / Moist Tolerant Annuals

Drought Tolerant

Moist Tolerant