Biennial Summer Flowers

Unrecognised beauties: biennial summer flowers

Buy seeds in July /August and grow!

Late summer in July / August (and in warm areas like the Rhine Valley even until mid-September) is a good time to grow biennial summer flowers.
Many amateur gardeners despise the pretty but shorter-lived biennials, preferring them to perennials. But in doing so, they deprive themselves of gorgeous flowering plants and varied splashes of color in the garden. That`s because biennials are among the most persistent bloomers in the garden.

Biennials are sown in July and the young plants are set in place in the garden in August to September. This allows the plants to still develop a good root ball until winter. They form a rosette of leaves that same year to overwinter with, and then start early in the next year. This gives them a competitive advantage over annuals and perennials, and allows them to put the energy they have stored over winter into lavish flowering.

Biennials include, for example, foxglove, hollyhocks/mallows, evening primrose, mullein, cardoon, clary sage, night violet, pansies, golden violet, bearded carnations, forget-me-nots, bluebells and columbine. The last three self-seed after flowering and spread around the garden. You should avoid foxgloves if you have small children, as they are highly poisonous. Hollyhocks develop beautiful large inflorescences almost as tall as a man. They are best sown in situ 50 cm apart, as well as cardoon and mullein. Golden violet, evening primrose, night violet and clary sage beguile with their extraordinary fragrance.