In the garden, I want instant gratification. Planting seeds and waiting two years for the plants to bloom calls for more patience than I usually possess. So when it comes to perennials, those stalwarts that live for years in the garden, I often buy potted plants that will please me with flowers their first year in the ground. But growing perennials from seed is a real money-saver, and the siren call of a $2 seed packet that will yield a couple of dozen plants is hard to ignore — especially when I compare the price of those homegrown plants to the $3 to $5 a pot I’d pay at the nursery.
Over the years I’ve done some experimenting and discovered a garden-full of easy-to-grow precocious perennials. If you plant these seeds early (in the garden if it’s an early spring, in pots if not), you can often enjoy colorful flowers the first year.
Gardening Tips: Instant Gratification
My first success was globe mallow (Sphaeralcea grossulariifolia, also sold as S. incana; Zones 4-10), a wildflower from the West with spires of simple cupped flowers in summer. I almost missed out on this hollyhock relative because the catalog called it orange, and I thought the color would be hard to work into the garden. I’m glad I took a gamble, because the blossoms are actually a soft orange-red, further mellowed by the effect of the gray-green leaves.
Orange globe mallow is beautiful with blues, like ‘Blue Mirror’ delphinium, another first-year bloomer. I had a hard time believing I could have blooming delphiniums the same year I planted seeds. But here in the humid lower Midwest, it’s one of the few delphiniums I can grow; the stately giants simply peter out when faced with our summers, so I grow smaller cultivars (Zones 4-8), like ‘Butterfly’, ‘Beverly Hills’, ‘Southern Jesters’, and ‘Southern Noblemen’, all quick to bloom from an early spring sowing.
If you’ve always wanted a hedge of lavender, meet ‘Lady’ (Lavandula angustifolia ‘Lady’; Zones 7-9), a fragrant delight that’s almost as easy to grow as marigolds. I like to jazz up its soft purple with the bright gold of ‘Early Sunrise’ coreopsis (Zones 4-10), which blooms the first year with fluffy double daisies. I sprinkle seeds of Verbena bonariensis (Zones 7-10) among the coreopsis; they’re “see-through” plants with tall, almost bare stems that you can put anywhere in the garden. Butterflies love their tight-packed clusters of tiny purple flowers, which bloom right through light frosts.
If you have a garden pool, plant seeds of monkey flower among the surrounding rocks for a spill of color from summer through autumn. Look for hybrids like ‘Red Emperor’ and ‘Fireflame’ for knock-your-eye-out color, or plant a mixed pack of ‘Calypso Hybrids’ for a flurry of warm color.
Summer-blooming perennials are your best bet for a first-year show. Pristine white musk mallow (Malva moschata ‘Alba’; Zones 3-8) is one of my favorites, with silken blossoms on branching three-foot plants. Golden marguerite Anthemis tinctoria ‘Kelwayi’; Zones 3-7) quickly grows into relaxed clumps of ferny foliage splashed with lemony yellow daisies that bloom into fall.
First-year flowers aren’t guaranteed, even with these precocious perennials, but I don’t mind taking that risk. If I don’t see any blooms this summer, there’s always next year!
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