Planting annuals in fall adds color to brighten wintry days

When you walk into almost any landscape for the first time, color will be the memory you'll take home rather than the greenery, the design or even the yard features. It's true that many things make up a successful garden, but color is the most unforgettable of all garden qualities.

Flowering annuals are synonymous with color. They are fast growing, cost-effective and very satisfying in achieving quantities of color in almost every color under the rainbow.

To get the most out of these bloomers, plant them now. You'll discover fall planted annual colors are more brilliant, longer-lasting and in greater abundance because the weather is working with you. Spring-planted flowers produce fewer blooms and frustrated gardeners.

As temperatures cool, you'll want to spend more time with your plants and your tender loving care pays back in blooms very soon. And aesthetically, we all need a boost during the winter with nude trees and brown lawns. They'll truly brighten your wintry days.

Note all you can plant now: The more familiar ones are alyssum, candytuft, calendula, pansy, petunia, poppies, snapdragon, stock, hollyhock, sweet pea, verbena and viola. Others to try are carnations, African daisy, aster, bells of Ireland, bachelor button, clarkia, columbine, delphinium, dianthus or sweet William, gaillardia, baby's breath, larkspur, nurembergia and statice.

And remember my favorites: ornamental kale and cabbage. These ornamental vegetables are certainly not bashful. When conditions are right, their intense purple and white veined leaves standout in any winter garden. The Japanese developed these beauties from edible varieties. You can eat them but they are not that tasty.

Like their edible cousins, flowering cabbages and kales are sturdy and frost-resistant. Temperatures below 40 degrees bring out their brightest colors.

The primary difference between cabbages and kales is the leaf shape. Cabbages have round wavy leaves while kale leaves are deeply serrated.

Choose a sunny location to bring out even more color in the leaves. Space them 18 inches apart so the colorful leaves show off more. Too many people want to wait until mid-October to plant, but they will never be as dramatic.

The Foley Federal Building once planted kale and cabbage in early September spaced 2 feet apart. Those elephant-eared leaves reminded me of cabbage pictures we see coming from Alaska. The wider spacings gave the mammoth leaves a chance to spread. When temperatures dropped, people drooled over them.

When selecting annuals, I always choose healthy, dark- green plants with flowers open to tell me the colors to expect. We used to advise people to avoid plants in bloom, but flower breeders improved these pesky plants. They hit the ground in full bloom and continue until next summer.

Here's a tip from the experts: Always buy a few more than you need. No matter how great you are, a few will die. You can replant soon so you always feel successful.

Bedding plants need an open, porous soil. Our soils are void of organic matter. Your nursery sells many commercial products, such as compost or planting mixes to improve the soil.

Organic matter opens our hard soils for roots to freely roam looking for those needed nutrients. It also provides drainage and allows oxygen back into the soil. And the organic products feed microorganisms that release those essential nutrients for your plants. This all adds up to happy bloomers, so be liberal with the organics.

For optimum results, spread 3 inches to 4 inches of organic materials on the flower-bed area. Add a balanced flower fertilizer and sulfur as directed on the containers. Work these ingredients into the top 6 inches of soil with a spade or tiller and then plant.

Plant your flowers right. Remove the plant from the container and part the soil with your trowel. Set it in the hole at the same depth found in its container. Firm the soil around the roots and give your bloomers a good deep irrigation. Mist the flowers if the weather remains warm.

Observe your plants closely, looking for signals to feed them.

Plant annuals anywhere they can get light such as under trees, along sidewalks, around shrubs or off by themselves. If you are renting and can't afford to landscape, plant annuals for satisfying results. For new immature landscapes, annuals make excellent fillers.

Linn Mills' garden column appears on Sundays. You can reached him at liinmillslv@gmail.com or call him
at 702-526-1495.