Annuals and Perennials for Early Spring Planting

When we have a long, “normal” Canadian winter, it is exciting to work with the first outdoor plants of the season.  This usually happens in April and has in the past comprised of mostly pansies and early perennials.  These are what the horticultural trade calls cold weather plants and they can live and grow in cool, inconsistent temperatures, often below freezing.

Recently we’ve become more aware of choices available in this category, which allows us to now have more creativity in the containers and garden designs we create in Spring.

Cold Weather Annuals

Cold weather annuals are varieties of annual (living only one growing season) plants that perform well, and some even thriving in cold temps.  These cold temps can occur at either the beginning or end of the season.  An example of such an annual is the pansy,  strong, sturdy and full of bloom in the Spring, floppy and non-blooming in the heat of the summer and then, if trimmed of excess growth, strong and lush in the Autumn again when the cool weather blows in again. 

Other annuals that do well in cool weather include:

All cold tolerant annuals can best handle temperatures below zero (to minus two or three) at night when they are well watered in the day. If it is extremely cold, watering off the frost prior to sunrise will help eliminate damage to the plant.

Early Perennials

Early Perennials (living more than one growing season, bloom and grow from year to year) can be planted in the ground in April, although in the cool ground they may not thrive until the soil is warm later in May or June.  This will also depend on where you live and the sun exposure of the flowerbed. Flowering spring bulbs, such as tulips, daffodils and the like also fall into this category.

Some Early Perennials Include:

Creating Containers for Spring

Cold weather annuals and early perennials can be used in combination in your first container combinations of the season.  Lovely combinations can be made with curly willow branches as the height in the centre of a container, hellebores, osteospermum, colourful coral bells and fuzzy dusty miller as the filler plants with alyssum, ivy and pansies spilling over the edges of the pot.  Or consider a simple, petite combo of pansies and ivy with pussy willow branches piercing the middle of the arrangement.

A benefit of using cold weather annuals and early perennials as container plants is that they can be repurposed. The perennials can be planted in the ground when your Spring arrangements are ready to move on to a Summer look; be sure to remove them gently from the container and water in with a root starter fertilizer to ease the transition. The annuals can be reused in other arrangements or flower beds or cut back (in the case of pansies, alyssum and diascia that may become overgrown once the heat sets in), planted in partial sun to ride out the summer and brought back into the forefront when the weather cools again in the Autumn.

Don’t get caught up in the excitement of Spring and plant or containerize varieties that are not cold tolerant!  Some stores (not usually your quality local garden centres) will present any or all plants they can as soon as the weather becomes warmer. 

For our area in April, it is too cold to have: