Gardening in Spain - Summer Planting
ANNUAL TIME IS HERE AGAIN
By Clodagh and Dick Handscombe
Summer annuals are generally wonderfully coloured profuse flowering plants but unfortunately are only one or two season plants as they grow from seed, flower and die within six to nine months – less if not looked after. They therefore require replacing each year by sowing seeds or buying new plants in the spring and early summer. And from the fantastic displays in local markets and garden centres now is the time to buy and replace the over wintered stocks, wallflowers and pansies. The choice is wide as illustrated in Section 4.1 of our best selling book Gardening in Spain –From planning to planting and maintenance. Everyone has their own particular favourites tempered to some extent by whether you have only window boxes on the front of a village house, a central patio garden, a terraced town house, a free standing villa or an apartment terrace garden.
For our villa holistic garden which we will talk about in our next article the following are our favourites in the Spanish climate.
Our ten favourite annuals
Although not enthusiastic about beds of annuals in hot dry Spanish gardens we do grow some annuals on our vegetable plot for cutting for the house and for attracting insects, and we do use annuals in pots/containers for specific dull semi shaded and north facing corners of the garden. Especially to brighten up semi shaded corners under trees, a north facing porch, the inner shade of a south facing naya and the ballastrade of a terrace. We list below our ten favourites and give some essential growing tips based on our experience of long hot summers and winter frosts.
1.ZINNIAS which we grow on our vegetable plot as the soil is richer than in our flower garden and we flood the plot every 6 to 10 days from April to September depending on whether it has rained. We grow both small and large flowered multi coloured varieties for cutting. Normally they will flower from June to the end of September, even through into October.
2. SWEET PEAS are also grown for cutting and again mostly on the vegetable plot on the vegetable plot where we can grow a ten to twenty metre row without compromising other crops. We plant seeds from the previous years plants and possibly a few newly introduced varieties both in the greenhouse and directly in the ground in November/December.
3. SUNFLOWERS are sown in corners, in pots and as a long windbreak on the vegetable plot. Seeds are saved from one year to another and used as a supplementary chicken feed and tapas for ourselves.
4. TRAILING PETUNIAS we grow in large pots and window boxes in full sun and in a couple of hanging baskets in semi shady places.
5. PORTULACAS fill seasonally empty pots on a sunny terrace.
6. BUZY LIZZIES are good in pots in semi shaded situations.
7. VINCAS are used in the same way as busy lizzies.
8. PANSIES are a winter favourite for various containers and winter boxes both in full sun and partial shade.
9. MARIGOLDS colour corners of the vegetable plot and new vegetable raised beds to attract black flies from vegetables, to brighten up the vegetable plot and as a medicinal herb.
10. NASTURTIUMS we grow both on the vegetable plot and in the flower garden in semi-shaded pots and in the semi-shade under a hedge. They give good colour in the spring and summer , leaves and flowers are useful in adding taste and bight to salads and the plants attract black fly off other plants.
The above selection gives us some continuity of colour throughout the year, are not often susceptible to diseases, and are reasonably drought resistant if we do forget to water for a day or the water supply is cut unexpectedly.
Care of annuals
Annuals do need more watering than many other plants, regular deadheading and a fortnightly nitrogen/potassium feed to maintain healthy growth and maximise both the number and continuity of flowering.
You can buy Dick & Clodagh Handscombe's book 'Your Garden in Spain' and other books on gardening in Spain and the Mediterranean by visiting our Mediterranean Gardening Books page.
