Many large apartment buildings hire services to come in and tend to their front greenery. It is common to see bulbs planted in the fall, the bulbs taken out after they blossom late spring, then to be replaced by annuals. The process then repeats...
Part of this may be the need to keep the front of these buildings looking their best at all times, or the relative ease of taking care of 'temporary plants' for just one season.
These Heuchera (Coral Bells) were put in last year, and survived quietly as straggly little seedlings. It took them an entire year of getting settled, but they have filled in beautifully. This year they only had to plant a few Impatiens for accent color; the ferns and Heuchera filled in the rest. The ivy-shaped foliage is saturated deep greens and purples, which makes the bright reds of the Impatiens stand out beautifully.
The full effectIn general I like watching perennials grow and recognizing them again from year to year more than watching the instantly beautiful beds of annuals come and go.. I know I have mentioned this plant before, but it really is a great planter addition. There are many hybrids now available in a range of colors, but the darker foliage varieties have fared better in my garden. They enjoy shade are hardy and love to be divided up, so they make a great plant to share with friends.
matt at apartment therapy dot com
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Maybe I'm really stupid, but I always wondered, how are there such packed in and full spring flowers in these boxed areas and then have room for totally full annuals and so on? I always scratched my head about that!
view susan's profile
Susan,
I don't know if this answers your question, but here in NYC you can actually get very well-developed annuals. I have seen 18" diam. New Guinea Impatiens ready to pop into the ground. Not cheap, but some people will pay for that.
That is the reason I like this building. They had patience and were willing to wait for things to fill in...
view mattplantguy's profile
I think large swaths of annuals are a waste of time, energy, and resources.
I worked in a run-down suburban office complex that put in hundreds (thousands?) of tulips in the spring, pulled them out and put annuals in for the summer, pulled them out and put mums in for the fall, and pulled them out and put in pansies (?) for the winter. Beautiful, but what a waste! Shows how cheap landscaping labor is...
view Jon_B's profile
Jon_B,
I agree. A few weeks ago I attempted to do the math on the annuals in front of one local apartment building. It came out to be in the thousands of dollars. They had planted rows and rows of fully-grown New Guinea Impatiens
These Heuchera cost more for one, but they get a better return on them for every year they survive. It seems like good sense to me...
view mattplantguy's profile
That's actually why I couldn't understand how "they did that." I thought I must not understand something about being a good gardener that you can have a million tulips and then fabulous annuals or perennials at the right time (so where did the underground tulip stuff go?) I simply could not fathom the waste factor involved. Thanks for clearing that up and not making me feel REALLY stupid!
view susan's profile
Do y'all not buy cut flowers? Do you consider those a waste, too?
view patrick (the other one)'s profile