The cut annual flower plot through the months

Orange zinnias and double click rose bonbons

As its now November and a deluge of water has pretty much finished off any remaining annuals in my front vegetable and cut flower garden hybrid, now seems like a good time to take a look back over the bed through the summer months. It has been a continuing thing of beauty, but each month it has looked different. First were the cornflowers, then the gladiolus, the cosmos, the beans and then the zinnias.

I started putting my annual plants in the bed in about June, although the gladiolus started to go in before that. I grow nothing in terms of annuals from scratch in situ. I just do not have the soil. My soil would make even the most robust, eager little annual seed give up with the heavy heavy clay. Although the front bed actually isn't too bad from years of bush roots tunnelling through.

Flowering kicked off in July with my cornflowers. Beautiful dark claret tufts waving around in the wind. Also bursting into action prolifically were my four varieties of beans in white, pale lilac and orange and these provided a lot of the colour at this time. A few cosmos had struggled out and my first zinnia.

Early August

At the beginning of August the antirhinnums were livening up the bed with their small mounds of bright colour. The first gladiolus made an appearance at this point too, a lovely pale coral one and unsurprisingly the first variety I planted. The bed was still to really get going, especially as the beans had moved into vegetable production by this point, but things were starting to look up.

Mid August

By mid August I had two different colours of gladiolus in bloom - the original coral one and fresh green star. The gladiolus definitely looked best when there was an assortment of colours out at once. My yellow zinnia was also brightening up one side of the beans.

After a wet few days

This was a bad day in the annual bed. We had the most torrential downpour of rain over several days and my upright straight as a dime gladiolus all flopped over and a bit of remedial staking was required.
By the end of August the gladiolus end of the bed was really starting to look pretty. There were the glads, cosmos, zinnias and cornflowers all vying for attention. I put the plants that had reached maturity earliest down that end as I was waiting for the beans to go in before planting up the other end.

Early September

Two of my favourite coloured plants appeared at the start of September and they complimented each other perfectly it turned out. The dark red glad was a winner with the neighbours and I just loved the zingy orange zinnias. They were a star of the bed right from this point onwards in my opinion.

Other than the orange zinnias the glads were the focal point of the bed. All the different colours started coming up together and totally ignoring my planting scheme, it was a riot of summer colour and this was the point people started stopping in the street. As long as they are not clutching a big pair of scissors thats fine with me!

This purple tobacco plant turned to be a pillar of the bed, complimenting the glads and the zinnias, but I actually didn't plant it. I don't know how it got in there, but once it started flowering, despite taking up half the bed I didn't have the heart to remove it.

A stray tobacco plant

It wasn't until early October that the double click bonbon cosmos plants down the other end of the bed really reached perfection and there was a seamless line of colour from one end to the other. Although it looks great with multiples of the same plant dotted around, there clearly is room for more varieties as I have planned next year.

I thought the bed looked really odd after the height of the beans was removed at the beginning of October. I liked all the colour against the backdrop of green. The early showers started to die at this point and I turned my attention to seed collection, which doesn't exactly improve the look, but oh well.

At the end of October the colour had begun to die off quite dramatically, but some heleniums and the antirhinnums were still flowering strong and keeping things interesting until last week when I imagine the colder nights finished most things off.

End of October

Now I am just left with a lot of dead plants to pull out to leave my vegetables. I have been gradually replacing the dying annuals with vegetable and salad plants so there shown be continuing greenery out the front through the winter and the soil wont go to waste.

Im really thrilled with how my annual bed turned out this year, especially as I hadn't planned it. Where I thought I was going to find the space to plant all my seedlings without digging up the front bushes I really don't know, but in the end they had their own dedicated area and it worked really well. Next year I hope to get a wider variety of colours and plants in and really make it something spectacular.

Annual flowers - Cornflowers black ball

I had to get hand-sy with my cornflowers to get the blooms within the one
frame

Having spent virtually every weekend from January until April huddled in my garage sowing annuals I thought I would share the fruits of my labour.  I sowed a lot, so I will take each individually in turn.  First up is the humble cornflower.  It was the first to flower and still continues to be a star of my annual border.

I had about ten seedlings germinate readily from easily the strangest seeds I have ever seen.  I talk about it more here, but boy were they odd.  They grew quickly, moved outside and were potted up well ahead of the other annuals. Growth in the garden has been equally rapid, shooting up in height and branching out.  This however is a bit of a problem because all except one have apparently no ability to stand upright on its own and flop everywhere, over the path, under the runner beans.  I discovered a whole plant the other day busily flowering away under the runner beans, completely out of sight.  I had to go and buy some really short canes to try and prop them up.  This is probably the only negative I have come across, that and being a bit leggy without much in the way of foliage.  But they are meant to add height to the patch, not bush, so one can't expect too much.

Cornflowers reach up towards the sky on long leggy stalks and very little greenery,
good for adding a little height to the border.  Excuse the dying gladiolus in the front

I have to admit I was a little surprised when the cornflowers started flowering.  The week before I had seen some lovely blue cornflowers in full bloom at the Hampton Court flower show and really thought they looked nice. I was really pleased that I had already decided to grow some and only had to wait a few days until I had some of my own.  What really struck me was the colour, so so blue.  I am a sucker for blue flowers.  So I was a little shocked when mine burst into flower and they were burghundy.

Cornflowers mingling with runner beans

I was a little taken aback, but eventually remembered that I had decided blue cornflowers weren't particularly special and decided to go for something a little different in the form of black ball  Just goes to show how the pictures on seed packets can really undersell the flower and seeing it in real life is necessary.  Not that I don't like the burgundy, because I do.  The are the most gorgeous dark winey colour, adding a little depth to all the bright summery colours of the other annuals. Its just if I could make the choice again I would go blue.  Next year I plan to buy some blue ones to add to the mix alongside my burgundy ones.  That or snaffle some seed from a verge down the road which some soul has sowed annuals on.  They don't really belong to anyone, so I think it will be fine.  Just need to take a pair of scissors with me when I next go running!

It is impossible to get cornflowers in focus, I think some in the back are! But you see the lovely colour and overall impression

They really are good flowerers.  The first one to flower has been solidly covered for the last five or six weeks without break.  Im out there dead heading on a fairly regular basis, but they are a solid addition to an annual bed.  Admittedly some of my ten plants have not done so well, failing to get to the size or have the number of flowers that the biggest plants do, but thats plants for you.  Nothing is consistent.
I would wholey recommend, in blue, burgundy or any other colour.  I plan to have some of each for my border next year.

A border of summer annuals - July

My new annual flower bed, with cosmos, stocks, cornflowers and my first zinnia
of the season

You know what they say, one person's loss is another's gain.  In this case it is four bushes lost, a summer annuals border gain.  I have posted before about how we ripped out the front hedge consisting of four raggedy bushes and were left with a lovely big border just ripe for the planting.  I put in three wigwams of beans and a couple of lines of dwarf but this still left me with plenty of room for other things.  And if that wasn't enough the mother then decided to cut into the grass and expand the border to make something a little more pleasing on the eye.

One of my beautiful marbled antirrhinums, nestled in next to my runner beans 

If you are a long-time reader of my blog, you would be aware that since January I have in effect been running an annuals breeding programme.  On cold cold Saturdays I would be huddled in my garage, pushing seed after seed into compost, dreaming of a beautiful summer display.  As this started pre front border emptying I figured I would just find holes for all these annuals here and there amongst the established plants.  That plan would not have worked.  I probably have grown around sixty plants of various varieties, my supply of nooks and crannies is not that endless.  They would have been tucked away and hidden.

It really has the feeling of a proper cottage garden, with a mixture of vegetables and
proper old fashioned cottage garden flowers.  Here is glorious bright red runner
bean flowers with white stocks

But not now.  Now they have taken centre stage in my garden, in full view of the road and all my neighbours, and I think it looks rather good.  Plants I managed to get in fairly early are happily flowering away.  At the other end my beans are also in flower surrounded by more annuals and then I have just put in my last plants in between.  There are also around fifty gladiolus bulbs in this border, when it is all out it should really be a joy to behold.  The first two spikes of gladiolus have just shot up so I am expecting flowers very shortly.

My border is full of these lovely dark burgundy cornflowers

Why did I grow all my annuals in pots rather than just chucking the seed in where they are to grow? Not in my soil they don't!  Nothing but aquilegia grows from seed in my heavy clay soil.  The task is too hard.  They do much better if they can be allowed to get established and then I leave them to the mercy of the clay.  I have given each plant a little sand around them to help improve drainage, and they seem to like it enough.  The great thing about this bit of soil is that because it had large bushes in it with extensive root systems, the soil is not too compacted and digging a few inches down is comparatively easy.

I am thrilled with this zinnia, its just the most beautiful colour.  I have several varieties
so there should be a good mix

Among my varieties are cosmos, zinnias, cornflowers, antirrinum, scabious and stocks.  I did not deliberately co-ordinate the colours but they do actually all compliment each other.  I will be doing individual posts on each variety, saying what I think of it and close-up pictures, that kind of thing, but I wanted to show the border as a whole as it is at the moment.  It is pretty today, but I hope it will change and morph across the next month and look different but equally pretty in a months time.  I will share how it has changed over the next month at the end of August.