I once had a neighbour, an amateur builder, who liked to hammer in twice as many nails as necessary to hold a thing together. “Nails,” he would say, banging away, “are your cheapest item.” Out in the garden, the same might be said of seeds. Compared with perennials, trees, evergreens and the rest, seeds are a real bargain. For less than the price of one potted perennial, you have potentially hundreds of plants rattling around in a packet.
Some gardeners shy away from them. “Too small, too slow, too fiddly,” they say. And yet for every speck-of-dust primula or hard-shelled hellebore seed, there are annual flowers whose seeds are easy to handle and quick to grow. Nothing beautifies bare ground in new beds or fills gaps left by winterkilled perennials as effectively as a scattering of annual seeds; you'd be hard pressed to find plants of any category that deliver such a quantity of colour in such a short time for so little effort. Seeded annuals quickly fill containers, brighten corners of a vegetable garden or climb trellises. And as cut flowers, several seed-raised annuals are without peer. On nursery benches you'll find marigolds and impatiens aplenty, but if you want scarlet runner beans, sweet sultan (Amberboa moschata syn. Centaurea moschata), pot marigolds (Calendula officinalis cvs.) or love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena), you'll have to shake a packet or two.
The ubiquitous sweet alyssum (Lobularia maritima) wins a place in our garden on the strength of its lovely scent and long, frothy flowering. Sprinkle seeds of this willing filler directly into the ground at the front of sunny beds, or in window boxes and containers. Cover with the merest dusting of soil (5 mm or less) and look for signs of growth in a week or so; then thin seedlings to a hand-span apart. The cultivar ‘Sweet White' smells of honey, as do the much larger flowers of heat-tolerant ‘Snow Crystals'. A packet of mixed colours (‘Wonderland' or ‘Aphrodite') weaves a low carpet of rose, purple, lavender, pale copper and white. Similar to sweet alyssum in colouring and flower shape, but twice as tall (25 cm), annual candytuft (Iberis spp.) is also quick to grow from seed; look for ‘Fairyland' and ‘Flash' in mixed colours, amiable fillers that thrive in lean soil in the sun.
Few annuals are as generous with flowers as pot marigolds, or calendulas. The Latin name comes from the same root as calendar, suggesting that this bright-eyed thing may bloom year-round in mild climates. From a mid-May sowing in our Zone 4 garden, July to November is more like it. Rough-edged and crescent-shaped, pot marigold seeds sprout in a week or two; within 60 days, cheerful, daisy-like flowers open in fruit-bowl colours of orange, apricot, peach and lemon. ‘Touch of Red Mixed' offers bicolour blooms, the tips of their petals prettily brushed with red. Long-stemmed (45 cm) ‘Pacific Beauty', in mixed or single colours, are elegant in beds and bouquets, while some sites call for shorter (30 cm) cultivars, such as Fiesta Gitana Group ‘Bon Bon', ‘Apricots and Oranges' or ‘Daisy May Gold'. All thrive in the sun in any soil except dense, wet clay. Thinned to 15 centimetres apart, they branch out and bloom on.
MAKE TIME FOR 4 O'CLOCKS
Under the summer sun, four o'clocks (Mirabilis jalapa, shown above) grow quickly into big, dark green bushes studded with bloom. Also known as marvel of Peru, this tropical annual is easy to raise from its big, jet-black, urn-shaped seeds, which are best started in pots indoors and set out after the last frost. The “marvel” is apparent when small, pointed buds unfurl in the late afternoon into fragrant, multi-hued trumpets. Quirky in colouring, they often show contrasting bands, blotches and streaks of hot pink and yellow, rose and white or red and orange. Try this tall (50 cm) annual if you want a sure success from seed.
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