Odd, seldom-seen annual flowers are always a thrill to grow from seed, even if only a few plants come from a packet.
In a dozen years of adventuring with annuals, I have found that several unusual, rarely-grown flowers are beauties, well suited to our drought-ridden, Midwestern gardens.
Try dividing your packets of seeds, as I do, sowing portions at intervals of 2 weeks in spring.
Sometimes part of them will fail due to weather, and a later, or perhaps earlier planting, might give surprisingly good germination.
Asclepias Curassavica (Brazilian Butterfly Flower)
Asclepias curassavica, or Brazilian butterfly flower, is a plant about 2’ feet tall.
It is brilliant, hour-glass-shaped flowers borne in clusters up and down the stalks.
The color of the buds is burnished coral, and flowers range from orange buff to orange-scarlet.
This plant proliferated from spring-sown seed and flowered abundantly from late June to frost.
Companion Annual Plants In Gardens and Borders
Striking companions for the butterfly flower, both in the garden and border, are the dear blue sprays of the annual anchusa Blue Bird.
If it is planted early in a cold frame, this does best for me.
Crimson King calliopsis’s rich, velvety blossoms grow on plants about 15″ inches tall.
They make lovely companions for the satiny white blooms of the tulip poppy, Argemone Grandiflora. This argemone needs late fall or very early spring sowing.
Another annual, Abronia umbellata, thrives even during drought.
It blooms all summer and autumn, making trailing mats of crisp foliage with gay, rose-colored clusters of fragrant flowers somewhat like verbenas.
They grow only about 6″ inches high, thus making a good edging plant.
The sixth “drought-fighter” in my garden is a free-seeding weed in some places. I have seen it growing as such in Kansas.
But in my garden, I find snow-on-the-mountain, Euphorbia marginata, an attractive plant flowering at a challenging time in late, hot, dry summer.
I found it quite leggy until I learned the secret of nipping out the top leaves of each stalk twice, early in the growing season.
Thus treated, they grow into neat bushy plants. Their beauty is in the white border and shiny gray-green of the leaves.
In autumn or early spring, I like to scatter the seed thinly through my center border row.
The seventh and last of this list of drought-resistant annuals is the coneflower, or rudbeckia, My Joy.
This bright, orange-yellow, 5″ inch, blackeyed Susan grows about 2′ feet tall. It is one of the easy flowers from spring-sown seed and is lovely in the garden and bouquets with Snow on the mountain flower.