Tips for Selecting Annuals

Choosing annual flowers can feel overwhelming at a garden center — but the choice comes down mostly to timing and hardiness once you know the three broad categories they fall into.

Hardy, Half-Hardy, and Tender

Hardy annuals tolerate cold well but dislike heat — calendula, foxglove, viola, sweet alyssum, pansy, and dianthus are typically planted in spring or fall. Half-hardy annuals, including torenia, strawflower, baby's breath, and candytuft, handle cool damp weather but not a hard winter freeze, and go in after the last spring frost. Tender annuals — petunias, begonias, morning glory, nasturtium — want genuinely warm soil and go in around three weeks after the last frost, rewarding you with their fullest display in the warm months of summer.

Choosing With Confidence

Start by matching a variety's hardiness category to your planting season, then choose based on what you like the look of — the finer points of sun, soil, and water needs come with a bit of experience. Planting a mix across all three categories means color breaks through in different stretches of the year rather than all at once.