Very few people actually have traditional beds of annuals nowadays but brighten up their gardens with easily cared for tubs and containers. Many of the basket plants are in fact tender perennials. The virtue of the whole crop, annual and perennial, is that the plants flower all summer long. A few pockets of plants here and there in a herbaceous border will ensure continuity of colour throughout the season.
We still grow the traditional annuals – some of which are becoming quite hard to find elsewhere. Calendula, Didiscus, Stocks, Zinnias, Portulaca and Asters – often overlooked because of their late flowering, but well worth waiting for…