Have you noticed everyone talking about their fall gardens? We’re still in the thick of this year’s garden, and gardeners are already thinking ahead to the next season.
For years I ignored planting in the fall. August and September are busy months in the garden. Most of the produce is ready for harvest. Herbs need to be picked and processed. And I’m making as many bouquets as I can. So who has time to think about next year? Well…
If you want to have early flowers blooming in your garden next spring, then now is the time to plant them. I’m talking about hardy annuals. These flowers can survive the cold weather in winter. Come next spring, they’ll bloom earlier than spring-planted flowers.
Each year, I try to add more hardy annuals to my garden. And I keep the show going by allowing the ones I love to self-seed. This spring I had an amazing display of larkspur, bachelor buttons, and poppies that self-seeded from the previous year.
You can find out all about hardy annuals on this post: How to Make an Amazing Garden With Hardy Annuals
Why Grow Hardy Annuals…
Hardy annuals are just that. They are hardier than summer annuals. Hardy annuals can actually be annuals, biennials, or even perennials. When you start them in your garden in the autumn, they won’t produce any flowers. Instead, they grow a root system that will help them survive the cold winter. Then, in the spring, they grow quickly. And burst into bloom long before spring planted flowers.
You can plant all these flowers in the spring. They will grow and produce blooms. But when you start them in the fall, you get a jump-start on the growth process. Because of this, you’ll get earlier blooms in the spring.
Another reason to start these plants in the fall is that some hardy annuals are biennials. That means it takes two seasons of growth to produce flowers. In the first season, the seeds germinate and grow but don’t produce any flowers. Then, in the second season, they bear flowers. By planting these biennials in the fall, this becomes their first season, and then the spring is their second season.
5 Flowers to Start This Fall…
Here are five of the hardy annuals that I’m growing now to get a jumpstart on next year’s garden. Most of these are biennials.
Canterbury Bells (Biennial)
I grew these in my garden two years ago, and they bloomed this past spring. Wow, is all I can say. I loved the tall spikes of little cup-shaped flowers. And they lasted a long time in the vase when I cut them. Once they finished blooming, I removed the top third of the plants, and they re-bloomed. The second flush was not as large as the first, but it added pretty shades of pink, lavender, and purple to my landscape.
I’m definitely growing these again. Since they’re biennials, I’m starting a batch now so that they can begin their growth cycle this year and will bloom next spring. If you wait until spring to get them started, then they’ll grow for an entire year with no flowers. So, start them now for beautiful blooms next spring.
Foxglove (Biennial)
Foxglove is one of my all-time favorite spring flowers. I’ve been growing it for many years. I allow it to drop seed so that it can continue to grow and bloom every year. However, the spot where my foxglove is growing has become too shady, and the plants do poorly. The seedlings often die rather than grow into beautiful new plants.
Last year, I had a stray seed grow in an unusual place. I didn’t notice it until this spring when it sent up its flower spike. It grew tall and stately as a foxglove is supposed to. It had self-seeded onto a sunny pathway that rarely gets watered. The dogs ran past it daily, and still it survived and put on a beautiful show.
With that in mind, I’m moving my foxgloves to a sunnier flowerbed. Since most foxgloves are biennial, just like the Canterbury bells, I’m starting my foxgloves now so they can bloom next spring.
Sweet William (Biennial)
Sweet William is another early spring bloomer. They make a wonderful addition to your flower beds and cutting garden. You can get a large flush of blooms from spring into early summer.
As summer heats up, sweet William stops producing flowers. I cut them back, which opens up space for heat-loving summer flowers. I let cosmos go to seed each year in this space. They fill in and bloom once the sweet William stop blooming.
Breadseed Poppies (Annual)
Breadseed poppies come in many shapes, sizes, and colors. They do best when sown directly into the ground and don’t do as well when transplanted. There’s nothing more magical than the sight of new poppies opening up each day.
For the largest poppies, be sure to thin them to about 9-12 inches apart. And if you love them, you can just let them go to seed each year, and they’ll continue to come back year-after-year.
Black-Eyed Susan (Perennial)
Black-eyed Susan, also known as rudbeckia, is another perennial that will provide lovely color to your garden year after year. Planting it in the fall will give it a head start so that next spring and summer your garden will be filled with cheerful color.
How to Plant This Fall for Next Spring…
You have several options for getting started with fall planting. You can plant the seeds directly into the ground, or you can start the seeds in seed trays and then transplant them into the ground as a larger plant.
Which method you choose will depend on your situation. Space, time, and the ability to keep the seedlings moist are all considerations.
Another option might be to purchase these plants at your local nursery. However, by autumn, most nurseries only sell chrysanthemums, pansies, and asters. By growing from seeds, you’ll have a much bigger selection of plants to choose from at a lower cost.
Consider one of these two methods for growing your hardy annuals.
Direct Sow
Planting your seeds directly into the ground is the easiest technique. This works well if you have an open area to plant and you’ll be available to keep the ground moist until the seedlings sprout.
Seed Trays
This is a good option if you don’t have open bed space right away. If you’re waiting for a summer crop to finish up so you can remove the spent plants, plant your seeds in trays. Then once you’ve cleaned up a bed, you can transplant these starts.
Planting in seed trays takes more effort because you’ll need to pot them into a larger container and eventually into the ground. However, this gives you a good option if your current beds are not free for planting in.
The key to starting hardy annuals in the fall is that you need to plant them early enough so they have time to germinate and grow a sturdy root system. Plant hardy annuals about 6 to 8 weeks before your last frost. If you wait too late into the fall, then the plants might not be strong enough to survive the winter.
Fall Planting Tips…
Here are a few suggestions for the best success:
- Plant early enough for good growth.
- Once the weather turns cool, protect the plants with a nice layer of mulch.
- While hardy annuals can typically survive winter exposure, consider covering them with frost cloth if the weather is going to dip excessively.
- Once the warm days of autumn are past, plant growth will slow or stop. Although these plants don’t look spectacular, they’re still alive and are just waiting for spring.
Even if you’re not ready for the summer garden season to end, fall is right around the corner. No matter how busy you are with this year’s garden, you can never go wrong by planning for the next growing season.
So now is the time to think spring and add some hardy annuals into your garden beds for next year. I can’t wait to enjoy the foxglove, sweet William, and Canterbury bells growing in my garden.
Start your flowers this fall for an early spring display. Next spring, you’ll thank yourself for the extra time you spent planting hardy annuals.
