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September
Plant cold-tolerant annual flowers
Give your garden a jolt of spring color — plant annual flowers that laugh at light frost.
- Time
- 1 hour per two dozen plants, plus time to prepare the flower bed
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Frequency
- Once a year
- Where
- USDA hardiness zones 3-8
Overview
Jumpstart your flower garden with annuals that enjoy cool weather: Annual lobelia Annual phlox Calendula (Pot marigold) Dianthus Forget-me-nots Pansies Snapdragons Stock Sweet alyssum Sweet peas Violas
Steps
- Ask the garden center staff if the transplants have been acclimated to the cold, or "hardened off."
- If so, you can plant right away.
- If not, put the packs of transplants on an unheated enclosed porch or outdoors in a sheltered area. Move plants indoors if temperatures drop below 32 degrees F. After 7 to 10 days, they're ready.
- Check whether the soil is dry enough to work — a ball of soil should break easily when you drop it.
- Prepare the flower bed:
- If you already have a flower garden, rake away any plant litter left from last year.
- If you're starting a new flower garden, dig out the lawn or other plants that cover the area. Then use a spade or spading fork to turn the soil to a depth of 8 to 12 inches.
- Use a hoe or garden rake to break up large clods of soil and to smooth the surface.
- Gently remove the flower from its plastic pot and use your fingers to lightly loosen the roots a little. (If the pot is peat or fiber, just tear off the top edge above the soil.)
- Use the trowel to dig a hole about 4 to 6 inches deep and a few times wider than the plant's root ball (the clump of soil with roots growing in it). Set the soil next to the hole.
- (Optional) Sprinkle a little dry fertilizer into the hole. Check the label for the recommended amount.
- With one hand, hold the plant in the hole so the top of the root ball is even with the top of the hole; use the other hand to fill the hole with the loosened soil.
- Press the soil firmly around the plant, to get rid of air pockets that could dry out the roots.
- Repeat these steps for each flower, spacing them at the distance recommended on the plant tag.
- Use the hose or watering can to gently water the flower — apply enough water to soak the soil to the bottom of the roots.
- (Optional) Gently pour liquid fertilizer on top of and around the plant.
Green alternatives
Use an organic fertilizer, such as diluted liquid seaweed, to give flowers a quick start.
Tips & warnings
- Working soil that is too wet damages the soil structure.
- Cool-season annual flowers often fade in summer's heat; when they do, replace them with heat-loving annuals such as salvia, begonia, impatiens, vinca and petunias.
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