Adding Color to Your Garden with Annual Plants

Annual plants can be not only practical but also incredibly decorative. Many varieties are actually very easy to grow from seed yourself. If you proceed skillfully and with a plan, you'll always have beautiful blooms to fill pots, window boxes, and beds, bringing many splashes of color to your garden.

It's practical that you can start pre-growing your annuals very early in the year, as early as late January, so that by the time the "Ice Saints" (mid-May) arrive, you can directly plant many robust plants outdoors. This way, annuals help you, for example, to fill bare spots in flowerbeds once your spring bloomers have finished their display and receded. For instance, marigolds, strawflowers, calendula, forget-me-nots, and foamflowers adorn many German gardens anew each year.

However, annual climbing plants like passionflowers, clematis, and Black-eyed Susan are also very popular on terraces and in gardens. They not only provide extremely fast-growing sun and privacy protection but, more importantly, offer abundant blooms. And they do this exactly when you need them most: in summer. In winter, when you're grateful for as much sunlight as possible to enter the garden and house, they modestly clear the space again.

If you continuously re-sow some plants throughout the spring, you can control the blooming times of your flowers and ensure your favorite blooms are always visible at the right moment. You can even plant the last ones, which might be surprised by the onset of winter, not outdoors but in pots, so you can bring them indoors if needed. There, they can continue to bring life and sunshine into your home for a few more weeks, albeit much more modestly.

Sunflowers, perhaps the best-known annuals, are particularly easy to grow, and their rapid growth is great fun for children too. They also provide high-quality bird food for native species, bringing much joy to the garden all year round.

If you're less interested in the sunflower seeds and more in the beautiful blooms, you can opt for varieties like 'Gefüllter Zwerg' (Filled Dwarf) and 'Gefüllter Riese' (Filled Giant), or choose multicolored blooming varieties like 'Solé' and 'Ring of Fire'. The elegant 'Moulin Rouge' lives up to its name with deep red petals and stems.