10 Best Annuals for In-Ground Planting

Do you love the look of an entire row of sunflowers blooming? Or do you need to fill in some areas in a perennial garden that you'll otherwise be weeding all summer long? Or perhaps you're thinking of a big drift of flowers all in the same vibrant color for that wow impact. There are varieties of annuals to fit all these scenarios and more. I thought I'd create a list of my top 10 favorite annuals for planting directly in the ground. They're not all monster plants but they all look great en masse in the ground. Zinnias: If I could only have one flower on my desert island, I think I'd probably pick zinnias. They're so easy to grow, cheerful and perky and produce flowers all summer long. There's a ton of colors and sizes available. One of my favorites is "Cut & Come Again" because, as the name implies, you can cut bouquet after bouquet and this zinnia will just keep producing more happy blossoms for you. Amaranth: I found an all-new appreciation for amaranth several years ago while walking the first hundred yards of Marginal Way in Ogunquit, which cuts through two high-end hotel lawns. There was a beautiful garden bed planted the entire distance until you reached the ocean's rocky edge. A mixed bed of large, striking plants, about every fifth plant was amaranth "Love Lies Bleeding." What a descriptive name. A waist-high, bright-green bushy plant indeed looks like it's got a gushing trail of blood spurting out of it with its cascading red bloom. It would look great with coleus, red zinnias and some lime-green foliage plant. Cosmos: An old-fashioned garden plant, cosmos is well loved and easy to find in garden centers. You can grow it from seed or from starter six-packs. The most common variety is the bipinnatus mix which flowers pink, white and purple. Reaching up to six feet tall, cosmos flutter lightly in the breeze and bloom all summer long. A great companion to cleome and great for cutting! Cleome: Cleome is another old-time favorite with its roots in South America but cultivated worldwide as an annual since the 1800s. Another big and boisterous beauty whose blooms come in shades of pink, white and purple. It's also known as spider flower with its long, threadlike stamens projecting from each bloom as well as its elongated seedpods that develop below the flower. Extremely easy to grow in average soil, they look great mixed in with other similar bloom colors like cosmos and nicotiana (flowering tobacco.) They also make quite a statement planted en masse, all in one bed, spaced about a foot apart. Perfect for cutting. Impatiens: Unlike the first four sun lovers on this list, impatiens prefer shade or, at best, mottled sun. There are more recent hybrids (sunpatiens) that tolerate sun but I'm talking about the good old-fashioned garden impatiens you can still buy in six-packs rather than as an individual specialty plant. Impatiens are terrific in containers and beds alike. They come in tons of colors from red to orange to pink, purple and white with some beautiful pastels mixed in as well. If you like a bit more of a formal, tidy look, fill an entire bed with just impatiens and they'll be the best-behaved, non-stop bloomers you could hope for. Coleus: I always had a coleus plant as a kid. Right along with spider plants, they were the houseplants everyone had. About 15 years ago, I started seeing coleus in a whole new light. Primarily a foliage plant, colors range from the traditional red and green bi-color leaves to vivid chartreuse, smoky rust, blood red and even near black. The hybrids keep on coming and I love them. As bedding plants, the most satisfying are those from the "Kong" series due to their robust size. As a color companion to other plants in the garden or all alone in one big bed, coleus are simply striking. Verbena bonariensis: This stalwart companion plant looks nothing like the much shorter classic bedding plants most know. Their flower stems are so long and slender, they look like blades of grass and their little bundles of deep purple flowers at the stem tips look stunning swaying in the breeze. They work equally well in beds or in planters. Known as "see-through" plants, they are a wonderful supporting player in just about any scenario. A whole bed of just verbena bonariensis is also quite stunning, resembling a scene from the movie "The Color Purple." You will probably want to send me a thank you note if I prompt you to give this verbena a try! Salvia: Ok, what I'm referring to here is the annual salvia, specifically in shades of blue. My parents used to grow the shorter red and deep purple stuff but so did every landscaper for shopping plaza parking lots and banks, so I never cared for the short variety. Give me a "Mystic Spires" or "Black & Blue" and I'm thrilled. I've never had a lot of luck with perennial blue salvias (or the similar veronicas either) but annual "Black & Blue" and "Mystic Spires" are standouts. True vivid blues and with a height of two to seven feet tall, there's a variety for your beds or in a mixed container. Luscious. I'm out of room for this article so know that my 9th and 10th favorite bedding plants are lovely old snapdragons and majestic sunflowers!