Spring is in the air. If you are a gardener, then Spring is one of your favorite times of the year, and your first visit to the local garden centre is an experience that you have been anticipating all winter.
All garden centers offer two basic categories of growing stock – annuals and perennials; the implications of choosing one or the other without fully understanding the specific characteristics of that plant can sometimes have unexpected or undesirable consequences.
Shrubs and trees are perennials and also many varieties of flowering and greenery plants; perennials can be dainty and small, impressive and large, or tall and stately – that means the size is not the sole feature that you can rely upon in deciding, whether a particular plant is perennial or not.
Perennials are the traditional element of garden centers, many with old-fashioned names and old-fashioned memories of simpler times . . . of the carefully-tended gardens at your Grandparents homestead, filled with wondrous plants of every description, each with a history and a story to be told; where that particular snippet of a plan came from, and what it means in the collective family memory. However, if perennials are the timeless elements of your garden, annuals are the trendy, showy brash elements that can easily be varied as your tastes, neighborhood trends, and new varieties change from year to year; they will not survive wintering, and therefore, like trendy clothing, are intended to be featured in your garden for only one growing season.
Trays and racks in rows upon rows, brimming with a kaleidoscope of colors, shapes and fragrances; annuals are the largest component of the plants on display at the garden center. Each different species promises to deliver a memorable addition to the garden, even though that garden is, for the time being, nothing more than a mound of yet-tilled earth and vague images of what it was, and can be again. Annuals tend to be fresh from the garden, especially in larger garden centers, as they operate their own garden center nurseries supplying their own requirements as well as those of smaller retail locations in their area.
