BRAVO BIENNIALS : Planted Now, These Showy Flowers Will Sprint Into Spring Bloom
They’re called biennials, but in our climate they perform like annuals and may persist like perenni als. Regardless of classification, fall-planted biennials bring rich rewards the following spring and summer, and some blooms will hold throughout most of winter.
Gardening books report that biennials require two years to reach maturity, producing leaves the first year and blooms the second. Fortunately, that investment in time, space and effort is unnecessary here. Our mild winters accelerate the timetable of many biennials, speeding them into bloom ahead of schedule.
Fall is the best time to plant almost anything in Southern California, particularly biennials. With temper- atures cooling and with the prospect of rain showers, seedlings set out at this time respond willingly, almost taking care of themselves. It’s best to plant seedlings from flats or pony packs rather than buying larger plants in four-inch or one-gallon pots. It’s also cheaper. Seedling roots grow deeply and spread widely, building a broad root system upon which the plant can flourish. Plants started from seedlings nearly always produce more blooms of superior quality and over a longer period of time than plants transferred from larger containers. One weekend gardener in North Hollywood testifies that she has had little success with plants set out from four-inch pots but that seedlings nearly always thrive.
The biennials shown here can be planted by themselves or blended with other fall-planted flowers.
Certainly the boldest of the biennials is the elegant foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) . Not to be employed where subtlety is desired, foxglove tends to dominate a garden, its racemes often growing to a height of five feet. Yet its nodding, softly speckled blooms are most appealing, both for their fanciful appearance and for the ease with which they commonly can be grown.
The strain generally available as seedlings in nursery centers is Foxy, a hybrid that in only one season produces spires densely packed with bell-like blooms in cream, yellow, mauve, pink and rose-red shades. In the Malibu garden pictured here, four dozen seedlings were planted in late October. The first flowers appeared with ranunculus blooms in March; other racemes continued to shoot up during the next four months, making foxgloves a long-lasting addition to the spring and summer flower garden. In favored locations, they may even bloom a second year. However, the coarse, tobacco-like leaves become rather ragged as the season progresses, and some gardeners prefer to remove spent plants.
The first raceme of each plant is tall and sturdy and does not require staking unless it is watered from overhead. When this initial raceme fades and is removed, secondary blooms form on weak stems. These flowers are attractive but difficult to keep upright.
Foxglove is a wildflower in England and has long been associated with little folk or fairies. Its name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word fox , thought to be a corruption of folks , and gleow , a musical instrument composed of bells arranged on an arch. Another explanation suggests that the tubular blooms resemble fingers in a glove. The Latin genus name Digitalis refers, of course, to the word finger .
For more than 700 years, foxglove leaves have been used for medication. When properly processed and administered, they have some beneficial properties, but eating the leaves can be dangerous, and for that reason some gardeners avoid planting foxglove.
Other traditional biennials that tend to bloom earlier than normal in our climate are the quaint Canterbury bells ( Campanula medium ‘Calycanthema’). Started from seedlings planted at this time, Canterbury bells will send up three-foot racemes loosely arranged with inflated bells by next May or June. This often-overlooked bloom--in pure shades of blue, lavender, pink, rose and white--can create the effect of a cottage garden when planted with Shasta daisies, pinks, felicia, white or yellow marguerites, or pastel petunias. Among English gardeners, they’re sometimes called Coventry bells. They were mentioned in the literature as early as the 15th Century; John Gerard, an English herbalist and surgeon, wrote that the interiors of the bell blooms had “much downie haire, such as in the eares of a dogge or such like beaste.”
The white roots of Canterbury bells are edible and are said to resemble rampion (Campanula rapunculus) , which is sometimes cultivated as a vegetable. In this Malibu garden, the ground squirrels immediately discovered the planting of Canterbury bells; they devoured the succulent taproot first and returned the next day to pull the tasty leaves into their tunnels for a European-style salad after the main course. Despite ingenious and heroic anti-squirrel measures, all three dozen Canterbury bell plants were lost. Therefore, we don’t recommend campanula in gardens frequented by ground squirrels or other root-eating animals.
Sweet William (Dianthus barbatus) is another old-fashioned plant classified as a biennial. A fairly recent strain, Wee Willie, is widely available in seedling form in the fall. Its dwarf habit and gay blooms make it effective in pots or in low borders. Seedlings of the taller strains of Sweet William are difficult to find in the fall. In the spring, one-gallon containers of tall Sweet William plants are sold in nurseries. These plants are in full bloom and will tempt you if you had been unable to find plants in the fall. However, they won’t bear nearly the quantity of blooms that garden-planted seedlings produce.
Like foxglove and campanula, Sweet William was found in early English gardens. Unlike many cultivated herbs and flowers, however, Sweet Williams of that time were “not used in meate or medecine, but esteemed for their beautie to decke up gardens, the bosomes of the beautiful, garlands and crownes for pleasure.”
When lists of biennials are recited, forget-me-not (Myosotis ) is always included. Many gardeners, particularly novices, feel compelled to try forget-me-not, perhaps because of its charming name or the attraction of its gentian blue flowers, so fetchingly pictured on seed packets. Two species are commonly grown. M. sylvatica , cultivated as a biennial, has blue blooms with yellow eyes and reaches a height of two feet. The second is M. scorpioides (sometimes sold as M. palustris ). This forget-me-not is considered a perennial, grows 18 inches high and bears bright quarter-inch blooms. Both species are said to be vigorous, but in this garden they were quite shy and eventually disappeared. (We’d be interested to hear the experiences of other forget-me-not growers. Do they really grow vigorously?)
English daisy (Bellis perennis ) is listed in seed catalogues as a biennial, but in our climate it is actually a perennial grown as an annual. Its button-sized blooms look like tiny asters in shades of white, pink, rose and red. Larger double varieties produce two-inch-wide blooms on six-inch stems. Used primarily in pots in partial shade, English daisies bloom in winter. The blooms are attractive, but the foliage becomes tattered rather quickly.
Pansies are a biennial we could not live without. In colder climates, seeds started in August are wintered over in cold frames and set out to bloom in late spring. In this area, though, pansies bloom throughout the winter, provided that seedlings are planted early enough. Pansies are particularly useful because they can tolerate more shade than most blooming plants, an important consideration when the sun sinks into its winter orbit and creates more shade. However, the more winter sun that pansies receive, the better the bloom display will be. They’ll bloom into spring if they’re fed regularly and if faded blossoms are removed.
The selection of pansies at garden centers can be bewildering. If you prefer such forms as monkey faces and blotches, choose Roggli’s Swiss Giants, Majestic Giants or Race Track Mix. If you like clear faces, try Crystal Bowl, a mixture of apricot, burgundy, azure, white and yellow. For a solid color scheme, you can buy pansies in individual colors--red, blue, orange, gold and white. A particularly good variety is ‘Orange Prince,’ which glows like a setting sun.
Today’s large-flowered, symmetrical pansy blooms are derived from the tiny tricolor viola called Johnny jump-up. Many gardeners prefer to plant hybrid violas. Although their viola blooms are smaller, they flower more profusely and stay more compact than pansies.
The gloriosa daisy, introduced in the late 1950s, is a relative newcomer to the garden scene. The development of this hybrid biennial is truly the tale of a simple country lass who went off to college and was transformed into a glamorous superstar. Plant scientist Albert F. Blakeslee, working at the University of Connecticut and later at Smith College, treated the common roadside wildflower black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia) with colchicine to double its chromosomes.
The resulting hybrid bears huge daisies five to six inches across, both in single and double form. Colors range from lemon yellow through gold and into rust red, mahogany and maroon. ‘Pinwheel’ is a stunning bicolor in mahogany and gold, and ‘Irish Eyes’ is golden yellow with an emerald-green center.
Unparticular about soil, gloriosa daisy grows like the weed it was and thrives on heat and sun. Seedlings are generally available in the spring, but the best selection of varieties is found in the catalogue of the Burpee Co., Warminster, Pa. 18974.
All plants shown here were planted in late October or early November and fed regularly (usually once a month) with a 10-5-5 liquid fertilizer. The first blooms of most of the plants were pinched out to promote bushy growth. Once or twice, it was necessary to spray with an all-purpose insecticide to control aphids and whitefly in this coastal garden.
