Liven up summer borders with Undiscovered hardy annuals

Cheap and cheerful, quick and easy, annuals give ample blooms for your buck. If you look past the generic mixes, there’s a wealth of choice out there.

- Graham Rice

EVERY book, every magazine, every TV gardening show, every garden pundit – they all say the same thing: now is the time to sow seeds of hardy annuals. These are the flowers whose seeds you sow outside where you’d like them to bloom; planted in spring, they’ll dazzle you all summer before fading away.

Hardy annuals are quick to mature; they’re colourful, they’re easy and they’re inexpensive – you’ll often find many hundreds of seeds in a very affordable packet. What you won’t always find is the choice of varieties that were once readily available. Our tendency to buy more flowers from the garden centre, in bloom for instant colour, means we are growing fewer hardy annuals – and, as a result, the seed companies now list fewer varieties.

Colour options

In some cases, all the varieties of a particular plant have become scarce; sometimes it’s individual varieties. Sadly, it’s often the mixtures that have survived rather than the single colours, and I’m not a fan of the former. An unpredictable riot of a multicoloured mixture that clashes with everything? No, thanks. I’d rather opt for individual colours that will allow me to create more satisfying garden harmonies – even if it means I have to hunt them out.

Best ranges

Chiltern Seeds lists a very impressive range of hardy annuals, so I would recommend you start there. Sarah Raven, too, lists some very pretty individual colours, while of the big names both Mr Fothergill’s and Thompson & Morgan are worth trying. Some seed company websites provide a quick link to their hardy annual offering, and your weekly copy of AG often features hardy annuals as its free seeds.