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Introduction

A SURPRISING DISCOVERY

Spring has never been the same since my first season full of snapdragons, bells of Ireland, sweet peas, sweet Williams, and many other beauties. These familiar names may be some of the most admired garden flowers, but, sadly, few people are successfully growing them in their own gardens today. It doesn’t have to be that way.

In this book, I share the most surprising discovery I made while pursuing my career as a cut-flower farmer: planting cool-season hardy annuals in the fall and very early spring produces the easiest and earliest-blooming garden ever.

Cool Flowers is all about how and when to plant such flowers – called hardy annuals – so that spring in the garden will be nothing short of sensational. The key is to allow them to get established during cool weather. Plant them in the right spot at the right time, nestle their roots deep into rich organic soil, and stand back. These hardy annuals need little intervention other than having someone gaze on their beauty, or perhaps cut a few for the kitchen table. Once their basic needs are met, this diverse yet easy group of flowers will change spring in your garden forever.

Early summer harvests of hardy annuals.

Success with Hardy Annuals

Hardy annuals are those plants that typically only survive or produce a suitable crop of flowers for one year and are hardy enough to survive cold temperatures of winter. For many regions, these flowers can be planted in the fall to winter-over and bloom in spring – with a repeat planting in very early spring, if desired, to extend the blooming season well into summer.

For the northernmost regions of the country, these are the flowers to plant on the very earliest spring days, long before the last frost date has arrived. These are the flowers you can plant when the gardening bug is itching the most – when the seed catalogs are arriving daily and all you want to do is to get out there and plant something.

The truth is, nature stacks the cards for a hardy annual garden (and gardener) to succeed. In fall, winter and early spring, the temperatures are not soaring, so the garden worker is more likely to enjoy the task at hand. The plants are equally happy with the cooler temperatures, which means less stress on the plants. The soil does not dry out as fast, which means fewer watering chores – the rain and snow of fall and winter do the watering for you. Even better, pests and disease are not as active at this time of year.

All of this means success for your garden. Flowers planted during cool weather will become well established and grow a strong root system long before they are expected to begin performing. These healthy plants will stand on a sturdy foundation that will carry them through spring and into summer, taking on heat, disease, pests and drought with little problem.

Join in on the best-kept secret of gardening – fall, winter, and early spring planting of hardy annuals – for the best garden ever. It will restore your gardening hope and bring spring and summer blooms like you’ve never seen before.

Lisa