Best annuals for colour

Sow bold, bright annuals now for a riot of vivid colour throughout the summer, says Hazel Sillver, as she reveals the best plants to grow and how to sow them

- Hazel Sillver

ANNUALS are easy to grow, cheap and long-flowering, and the brightly colored forms fill the garden with cheer. The likes of cornflower, cosmos, zinnia, snapdragon and calendula are available in vibrant paintbox shades of magenta, scarlet, orange and cobalt, which brighten bare patches in borders from June into autumn.

‘The bolder, brighter colour flowers are always a joy to grow,’ say florists Caroline Harding and Kate Dalton, who grow their own flowers at the Sussex Cutting Garden. ‘The paler blooms, especially whites, get very bruised and damaged by summer rain, but the bolder colours seem to withstand a lot more inclement weather.’

Taking centre stage

At Great Dixter in East Sussex, which is famed for its use of striking colour, poppies are one of the annuals that take centre stage. The Ferrari-red ‘Ladybird’ poppy is shown off by being grown beside white sanguisorba, while the tangerine blooms of California poppy sizzle alongside pink clarkia. Also intensely orange, the Mexican sunflower (tithonia) is offset by lemon-yellow crocosmia. These maximum-colour annuals are used to fill gaps in borders between shrubs and perennials.

Another popular way to grow annuals is to mix them together to create a mini meadow. As well as producing quick height and colour in a bare, sunny patch of ground, it also provides a huge amount of nectar for wildlife.

Since many annuals are grown as cut flowers, they can also be grown in rows of colour in the vegetable patch, creating a rainbow effect. Having a cutand-come-again habit, most annuals (including cornflowers and cosmos) will bloom non-stop if regularly cut.

Drying annuals