Decorating & Renovating
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Do you plant a huge # of annuals every spring?
Every March/April I spend hundreds of dollars on flowers for all the planter boxes and hanging baskets around the front porch and back deck. I always forget how expensive it is.
Anyone else go through this every year?
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Re: Do you plant a huge # of annuals every spring?
Nope, when we did our landscaping we wanted either bushes or flowering perennials. The only things that get annuals are 2 small pots at the bottom of our front porch steps and a pot on our deck.
Wives Unscripted
Go Phils!!
It's my vegetable garden that gives me sticker shock.
We're pretty lucky. Some things that are annuals other places are perennials here. Even so, we were careful to plant perennials so that our yard would look okay without annuals, and we wouldn't have to think about them unless we really felt like it.
I've hesitated on spending the $ on annuals every year but our yard is in need of some love.
Can someone recommend some nice, easy to care for flowering perennials?
I try to stick with perennials as well. I add to my beds every year, but it's just to fill in the gaps and replace the things that didn't make the winter.
Not really. Tulips are best treated as annuals around here, and I put those in in the fall, so I have sticker shock for those in the fall. All my deck planters are filled with dwarf fruit trees and cool weather veggies, so those don't require (much) new plant investments. I guess that's one of the good things about CA. Lots of stuff is perennial here that isn't elsewhere, and my perennials start blooming in January and with the right combo keep right on blooming through November. But that also comes with heavy year-round garden maintenance, and the weeds never slow down, so that sort of sucks.
I did, however, just rip out all of my landscaping in the back yard in favor of a more edible landscape. I probabaly spent $250 on tiny plants (nothing mature). Ouch. But it's the first huge overhaul I've done in 5 years, so I didn't mind spending it.
No I try to save my money for perennials, shrubs, and conifers. We have a massive number of flower beds to maintain (most of which we haven't even gotten to redoing yet...we're working on 1-3 beds a year for many, many years).
I will be buying a few annuals for the first time this year because I got a nice, big glazed ceramic container for Christmas last year. It's going to sit on a large old stump we cut to the ground and provide some height. In our cold climate I'll have to bring it inside every year though so for now annuals are the easiest to plant in it.
Not without knowing where you live or what planting zone.
I have spent a lot in the past but in this house we have a non-stop array of flowering bulbs, trees and bushes. Last year was our first year here so we didn't do much and waited to see what came up and our yard was almost constantly in bloom from April - September.
I did plant some pansies this year and will put in some vinca and marigolds (need to be rabbit resistant) when the pansies can't handle the heat any longer but that is it. I could do a lot more but since so much else will be flowering I'm saving my $$$ for other things.
Planned Executed
Haha! Good point...It's NC in the middle of the state. Thanks! I noticed lots of people are saying they just use perennials, so I was wondering what they use.
My yard is full of trees, shrubs, and perennials, but perennials only flower for a few weeks, at MOST. Perennials and shrubs are the bulk of my garden.
But I need annuals. Without them, I have no color and no bees! My house is on the garden tour this year, so it's pretty critical for that as well. But every spring I get major sticker shock with the annuals. I think it is about $500-$600 each year. Crazy!
I buy maybe 2 flats of annuals, so minimal $.
Bulbs are my friends. The amaryllis, easter lily, narcissus (sp?), etc, they just keep coming back. Even better, every couple years I dig them up and divide them and then I have even more for free.
How about some nice roses? Around here they bloom for months on end.
I'm not talking about stuff to plant in the ground. I'm talking about decorating the front porch and the back deck... the containers. Hanging baskets and the window boxes. Shrubs, perennials, and bulbs don't work in those; they're either too big or they don't bloom long enough.