Spring is one of our favorite times of the year, as it’s the ideal time to plant both warm and cool-season annuals! Planting specifically for this transitional period ensures that your garden will stay as beautiful as possible all year round. The only struggle? With this many options, deciding on what you want to get in the ground is nearly impossible! Let us help you out this Spring with this handy guide to some of our favorite warm and cool-season annuals.
Cool-Season Annuals for Southern Florida
The weather may be warming up, but many cool-season annuals are still ideal for this time of year! These are a few of our favorites that you can plant right now and enjoy for the next few months:
SNAPDRAGONS
These breathtaking annuals do best when the weather is still cool, making now the perfect time to plant. Perfect for adding vibrance and dimension to a pot or garden bed, snapdragons are easy to care for as long as you keep them away from too much heat! Before the season gets too warm for these cool-season annuals, routinely dead-head your spent snapdragon blooms and make sure they’re getting plenty of sun.
IMPATIENS
Impatiens are the perfect flower to plant in your vegetable gardens, pots, or hanging baskets this time of year! The pink, red, orange, yellow, and white flowers are great for attracting pollinators, filling your garden with life and making it stand out even more. As long as you keep your impatiens well-watered and out of harsh sunlight and intense heat, they’ll provide you with year-round color, making these lovely cool-season annuals a no-brainer!
WAX BEGONIAS
Wax begonias offer year-round charm with their bright leaves and flowers, and they tolerate both hot and cool weather relatively well! These beautiful annuals don’t love the cold, however, so make sure that any chances of frost have safely passed before planting them.
Warm Season Annuals for Southern Florida
Are you trying to manifest some summer vibes in your garden right now? If so, let’s look at some of our favorite warm-season annuals that can take the heat!
CANNA LILIES
If you’re looking for high-impact annuals to add to your space, look no further than canna lilies! These gorgeous plants produce yellow, orange, or red flowers on stalks that can grow up to a few feet tall. Pest management is extremely important when caring for your cannas, so be sure to check routinely for bugs on or under leaves and water pooling at soil level to prevent fungal growth on your plants. Otherwise, simply plant your cannas in plenty of organic material and take in their beauty!
COLEUS
If you don’t want to rely solely on flowers for year-round color in your garden, coleus plants are the perfect alternative warm season annual! Their show-stopping leaves come in all shades of purple, pink, orange, red, and green, and they’re incredibly easy to care for! Best of all, they thrive in heat and are easy to propagate, giving you an unlimited supply.
PURSLANE
A hot-weather all-star, purslane thrives during Southern Florida’s warm season and fills any space with a touch of delicate beauty, whether as a groundcover, a border, or in a hanging basket. Blooms appear in red, yellow, orange, and white, making them one of the best warm-season annuals for attracting cheerful pollinators like butterflies!
The best thing about planting annuals is that they’re something to always look forward to! After the heat and intensity of summer passes, you’ll once again have another great transitional season in which you can plant more. This time of year is your last chance to enjoy your cool-season annuals and the perfect opportunity to begin planting your warm season ones before the heat of summer, so come down to Living Color Garden Center in Fort Lauderdale to get your hands on some of the most gorgeous warm and cool-season annuals today!