Annual color beds offer showy pockets in the landscape to add splashes of color all year long. These plants bloom their hearts out for a few months of the year and really create impact in contrast to your foundation and border beds and lawns.

Here in Georgia our typical cool weather annuals that thrive from October through mid- April are pansies, ornamental cabbage, kale, violas, and snapdragons. These flowers and foliage plants tend to peak at the end of March and into early April. Hard as it may be to rip them out when they are looking good, if you want a nice flower bed to get you through the summer swap them out with warm season color late April to early May. The choices for warm season annuals in Georgia is fantastic. We have lots of traditional annuals we can use such as petunias, marigolds, begonias, zinnias and lantana, and our summers get so hot we can throw in tropical shrubs to use as annuals such as banana, tropical hibiscus, and purple fountain grass.

Flower growers are always working on new and improved flowers, too, such as Angel Wing Begonia which has such interesting foliage you hardly care if it flowers! This is a great summer flower for part sun (morning is best) that gets nearly eighteen inches tall and comes in different foliage colors from red to dark green with speckles.

If you have a really hot site, you can wait until May to plant some heat lovers like Vinca and Portulaca. These are easy care plants that thrive in dry conditions once established. Because they require heat, soil temperatures need to warm up so they are better planted later in the season.

Lantana also does well in hot, dry beds and comes in many colors and sizes from trailing lavender, gold, red, and orange that stay low to the old standby shrub sized Miss Huff with yellow, orange, and pink all on the same plant.

For shade areas, in addition to Angel Wing Begonia, you can use traditional green leaf begonias, coleus, impatiens, elephant ear, and feel free to mix with perennial shade plants such as ferns, hosta, creeping jenny and heuchera that will return year after year. Looking for something a little different for sun, use Angelonia also known as Summer Snapdragon and a Georgia Gold Medal winner in 2009. For punches of foliage color, there are creeping and trailing Sweet Potato Vine that comes in chartreuse or purple leaves. Sun coleus is another option that ranges from greens, pink, red, and white variations. Ornamental peppers are a great conversation starter with orange, yellow, and red pops of color!

Always amend your flower beds with a quality soil amendment if the soil is poor and mulch after planting. Make sure to water all plants during establishment phase and through the summer as needed. Don't kill with kindness, waterlogged roots will rot, so be sure your beds are draining and are allowed to dry between waterings! Since annual flowers have a short lifespan and work so hard to bloom prolifically, feed them every 4-6 weeks with a light application of 10-10-10 throughout the growing season to keep them looking their best.

If your flowers become leggy and flop over in late summer, simply cut back and keep up with your regular water and fertilizer schedule and they should flush back out for round two!