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Index : Flowers - Perennials
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- 21. Flowers for Fall and Winter Color - Top
- Want to brighten up your fall and winter landscape? Do it with annual flowers! Nothing in the landscape can provide as much color, for as long a time, as can flowering annuals. Pansy, viola, and petunia are a few of the best for fall planting here in Tucson. They are frost resistant and will flower throughout the cool season. Other good choices include: calendula, dwarf snapdragon, and stock. For shady spots you can grow geranium, fibrous rooted begonia, sweet alyssum, and lobelia.
If you live in a location that has colder than average winter temperatures, pick the warmer spots around your home to locate your annuals. South-facing walls and under east and west overhangs are generally the warmest locations. North walls are the coldest and shadiest.
Annual flowers look great in groupings near the front door, along walks, patios, or beside pools for a real splash of color. For the best effect, limit your planting to two or three colors per bed. To many colors together in one spot looses visual impact and looks messy.
Some of the most striking color combinations are mixtures of the primary colors: red, yellow and blue. Combinations of secondary colors: green, violet, and orange are also attention getters. For a more subtle color effect combine flowers in a gradual sequence of colors; red to orange, yellow to green, blue to violet. Best of all, use your own eye to determine which color combinations you find most pleasing.
Select healthy flowers from your local garden store. The younger the plants the better. Avoid buying ones that are tall and leggy, and have obviously outgrown their pots. You can buy annual flowers in different sizes. Plants come in individual four and six inch pots, or six-pack containers. The individual pots are more expensive, but their larger root ball gets them off to better start once planted.
The key to growing beautiful annual flowers is soil preparation. Choose a planting location that is well drained. Add lots of organic matter, such as well composted manure, desert compost, or peat moss. Spread a 4 inch layer of organic matter over the flower bed and mix it in 12 inches deep. Also mix in to the top 12 inches of soil, ammonium phosphate (16-20-0) or similar analysis fertilizer. Use about 1 lb. of fertilizer for every 100 square feet of flower bed area.
At the time of planting, gently scratch the sides of the root ball with your fingers. This will encourage the roots to grow out into the planting soil quicker. Set plants at the same depth in the soil they're growing in the pots. Immediately after planting, water the bed thoroughly. Continue to water daily. When plants become established, space waterings farther apart. Watering every two or three days will be necessary as long as our temperatures remain unusually high. As temperatures cool, and especially in the winter, water on an as needed basis.
Monthly applications of about 2 pounds of ammonium phosphate (16-20-0) or similar analysis fertilizer per 100 square feet of bed area should keep your flowers healthy and full of bloom. If you have the time, remove faded flowers. Especially on geraniums, snapdragons, and begonias, pinching off faded blooms encourages increased flowering.
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Written by John Begeman, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the University of Arizona 626-5161. Material originally appeared in Arizona Daily Star gardening column, on October 12, 1997
- Updated: October 12, 1997
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