Our annuals first arrive at our house every spring as garden visitors, then became guests, even friends. They form the backdrop, the understory, in many a fine landscape, including ours. All those fledgling white impatiens, the vibrant-orange Mexican sunflower, our hard-nosed yellow marigolds, the moody African daisies, the surprising profusion zinnias, but most-of-all our effervescent favorite, the pink-stained double impatiens.
(Hold this thought: The word “impatien” comes from the Latin “impatient” meaning “Let’s get this over with.”)
As a result, impatiens are stuffed in the almost pejorative “annual” horticulture category, at least in zone 7 (with zone 6 tendencies) in extreme Southern Indiana. None are planted with Great Expectations of seeing Santa Claus. Maybe not even The Great Pumpkin.
Double impatiens. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, Forest & Kim Starr.
Their inevitable death lurks from the get-go
Yet those death dates are the furthest thing from a Hoosier gardener’s mind in middle-to-late April, when frost is still a possibility, but a screaming need to plant something makes the risk worthwhile.
The box stores – even the best garden centers – are more than willing to enable that risk with massive displays of annuals, many destined for our shaded corners, pots and containers.
Such pots are another weakness of annual-starved gardeners. The best of us will haunt the big nurseries, Old Time Pottery stores and even yard sales seeking pots on sale. It’s risky business. I have never met a blue porcelain pot I didn’t like. They line our driveway and the front of our barn like an azure necklace, replacing a previous addiction – half-whiskey barrels.
A generous tax return and a sale at Old Time Pottery heightened my addiction this past spring. Half-priced containers with ceramic-jeweled-edges were added to the parade of pots above our water feature. Who to blame for that, Donald Trump or Nicole Kidman?
Our pots were followed home by pints, gallons and containers of annuals, the subsequent weather reports requiring we haul out a dozen or so old sheets, blankets and gunny sacks for protection from a late frost. History has taught me the best way to prevent early frost damage from occurring is to do a lot of needless work preparing for it.
African daisies
Yet death awaits
The impatiens went in light blue pots behind the house. The Mexican sunflowers, raised from seed, went at the edge of the woods back by the stone wall, encouraged by strong afternoon sun to rise into it. The yellow marigolds needed a little more sun, but they easily handled being ignored. As always.
African Daisies were planted in a big pot in morning sun, refusing to cooperate for months on end, begging for water and attention until established. Which was only when the cooler weather hit, denying their African heritage. Then they happily bloomed for weeks, big circles of yellow, gold and pink.
Until death.
Frozen African daisies
The red geraniums kicked in about the same time, pushing up above – you guessed it – a faded blue pot. The biggest surprise of the year were the Zinnia “Profusion” series. We had never planted them before. Hadn’t even heard of them.
We purchased them at a favorite country nursery, miles from town and owned and operated by a husband-and-wife farm couple who love plants. They always looked for and sold many rare and hard-to-find annuals, perennials and shrubs not to be found at Big Box Stores
We were told the profusion zinnias were colorful, strong bloomers and enduring. Plant and forget. We planted a bed of bright yellow pint containers in a shrub border in a back pasture and tried to forget them, but they didn’t allow it. They handled a prolonged drought, then murderous sun, then heavy rain, growing to 15 inches tall.
Profusely. We kept going out of our way to keep up with them. We shall buy many more.
The annual double impatiens are by now an annual favorite
We buy them as hopeful candidates in April and watch them grow to fill our largest blue pots by late summer. They thrive and bubble up in morning sun and afternoon shade, reaching a foot high and 18 inches across, a watering hose kept nearby until no longer needed.
I recently read the doubles have become a little risky, with downy mildew moving in for the kill. Not in our pots. We also raise them in pots in the morning shade behind our sunroom. We have never planted any in the ground. Doesn’t seem regal enough.
For the most part, our impatiens hold steady as our perennials flower and fade away, our shrubs hold forth and ease away and our trees push out leaves which begin to fall away.
This year was especially good for all our annuals
We pushed past the average first frost date in mid-October, leaned into November with December coming up. Hydrangeas came and went, Thanksgiving came and still we had our Mexican sunflowers, profusion zinnias, yellow marigolds and double inpatiens. OK, we never quite got to a friendship phase, but it was quite nice to literally have them around the house.
Dead double in a pot
At one point this fall I had considered going outside and ripping all my annuals out of their pots rather than facing their frost-battered bodies in the morning, but they had earned the right to their final moments. So, I went with horticulture hospice care.
Send me dead flowers in the morning
I stayed as close to them as possible – at least without a flashlight – until Saturday morning’s heavy winds and 22 degrees sent most of them off to That Great Nursery in the Sky. Their limp skeletons shall all find heavenly redemption in our compost pile. Their ashes to be spread next spring in big blue pots.
Bob Hill, Garden Ranter Emeritus, is an award-winning journalist with 4,000 columns under his belt in a 33-year career. All tapped out with two fingers. He is the recipient of the Ernie Pyle Award for the “ability to connect with people and tell their stories.” He is also the author of 14 books. His latest is a memoir called “OUT HERE: ENCOUNTERS FROM THE HEART, SOUL AND LEFT FIELD.” Kentucky essayist, poet and novelist Wendell Berry recently wrote Bob a handwritten letter and said,
You are a readable writer and a likeable writer which is to say a good writer. This book is not recommended for people who need to quit reading and go to work.”
“Out Here clearly is the right place for you.”
Yes, Peace
Wendell
OUT HERE is available from Old Stone Press or in Louisville from Carmichaels.