Spring Biennials April 2012

Sweet Williams, Dianthus barbatus, are my favorite low fuss biennial.  I frequently read that people avoid biennials because they take up a garden space for a year without any flower production.  If you start them now (mid to late summer), keep them growing in little cell packs or other pots and then plant them in bare spots in the fall, they will reward you in early spring with vibrant and fragrant blossoms, without taking up space for an entire summer.

Sweet Williams with taller  lacy and white Agrostemma githago"Ocean Pearls" in the foreground.  Campanula medium "Canterbury Bells, another biennial, in bud in background.  Seed heads and a few straggly white flowers from yet another biennial, Verbascum phoeniceum "Shades of Summer", a few Allium multibulbosum and a lone Digitalis purpurea (Foxglove--another very easy biennial).