Annuals, Seeds, and Tropicals

Going into my fifth year I'm still learning about gardening in my northern New Mexico home. One realization I have come to slowly is that growing annuals from seeds isn't worth it. In fact annuals in general aren't much of a thing here.

The big box stores sell plenty of annual herbs like basil and sage and lots of tomatoes and peppers. But they sell far fewer ornamental flowers like marigolds and petunias and zinnias -- the ones I used as reliable summer fillers all the time in my New England gardens.

They do sell them, but not all the varieties to choose from that I was used to. And growing them from seed has turned out to be disappointing, even with starting them indoors in late winter.

The shallow tiny roots of seedling transplants can't handle the soil here. Annuals need a a lot of water, which is a problem, but even then, the small starts transplanted from seedbed to soil struggle. Their roots are too near the surface. The nasturtiums and black-eyed Susan vines, and even some Profusion zinnia seeds I started indoors took forever to do anything until Labor Day and then succumbed to frost soon after.

So I've limited annuals now to some containers on the patio, filled with the few varieties of fully established plants I can get from Lowe's or a local nursery. In pots they grow well enough.

 

The other reason annuals aren't popular is that the nights are too cold. We get good and hot in the daytime and the sun is strong, but dry air means nights get sharply cold even in summer. I looked up the stats, and our summer nighttime temperatures are more than 10 degrees colder than in Connecticut.

This means tropicals are a no-go. I used them sometimes in my Connecticut garden as annuals -- cannas with big leaves, colorful crotons, Cape plumbago, agapanthus, lots of choices to have for a season. They will live but not grow here, even in protected spots and in containers. It's too cold at night.

I had my heart set on this combination of orange and blue in the picture below. The blue is agapanthus 'Northern Star', a hybrid that is more cold hardy than most. That means it can survive winter temperatures with some protection, but what it can't do is grow much in summer without warmer nights. 

Mine didn't do anything all season, simply did not grow, although it sent up one skinny vivid blue bloom in September. I'll baby it along, get it through the winter indoors maybe, and see what it does next summer.

Garden catalogs always list winter hardiness and ability to survive freezing when they describe plants, but I'm finding summer night cold tolerance is an issue too.