Annual report

I missed the 'Wave' the first time around, but this time I'm jumping on the petunia wagon while there's still room. The 'Purple Wave' petunia plopped onto the scene a good 10 years ago. I remember featuring it on my show Gardener's Journal in 1992 and did we get mail! "As Seen on TV" the Purple Wave petunia achieved cult status quickly. It was so robust and fast growing and sturdy that every gardener wanted seeds - that was the only way you could possess it in those days. The Purple Wave was so pretty you could imagine it draped royally over the back of a Kentucky Derby winner. Other "Waves" followed, but none perhaps with the cache of the original purple one.

Now, a new princely petunia is making waves. It's called Avalanche. The tout sheet says that Avalanche will romp through the garden making a thick carpet of flowers all season long, flowers that breeders say stand up better to rain than previous types. It will also continue to produce flowers in the centre so there will be no embarrassing bald spot. Plant Avalanche in a sunny spot, put your sunglasses on and watch the fireworks. It comes in seven colours including red, lilac, salmon and pink. In pots, petunias will be happiest if fertilized every two weeks.

Those annual breeders, they're a sneaky bunch. Leave them unsupervised in a lab and they come out with yellow impatiens, apricot alyssum and nicotiana the colour of an Osage orange. It's easy to be caught flat-footed on the cocktail circuit if you aren't visiting your garden center on a weekly basis.

In addition to colour, breeders are also tinkering with growth habit. Remember bacopa? It's been a favorite of the hanging-basket crowd, because it drapes languidly over the sides of containers like Rapunzel's hair. Now the new upright bacopa called Breeze shoots straight into the air like a soldiers salute. It is covered in tiny white, star like flowers, and looks rather magical with its new posture. In my experience, bacopa tends to stop blooming in extremely hot weather, and starts up again when temperatures fall. Grow it in full sun but provide plenty of water.

Now, I haven't grown any of these newest annuals, but I have to admit I like the sound of them. For years I relied on two old warhorses that I still love - cosmos and cleome. I loved them because they were tall, informal, easy to grow, and often returned from seed year after year. Their "optics" were also right for fitting into the perennial border. These annuals and perennials made a nice, blended family.

In his charming book, The Perennial Gardener, author Fred McGourty devotes a whole chapter to Annuals for Perennial Borders. Many perennials, after all, have a shortish bloom period (two to three weeks), and will perk up with a stout annual to lean on. In addition to the winsome cosmos and cleome, McGourty likes annual bachelor buttons, lavatera and salvias. All of these annuals will flourish in the beastly heat of summer in average soil.

Joining the parade of tall annuals for the garden is a new one in these parts called angelonia AngelMist. "Angelonia is an easy, friendly plant that looks like a wildflower," says Landscape Architect Janet Rosenberg. Janet spied it on a trip to the California pack trials (show and tell exhibition for the hottest new flowers). She's a super sleuth for the Loblaws Companies, so look for the angelonias to be in their garden sections across Canada.

Angelonias sound like blockbusters. They are fine in torrid heat, grow well in the ground or large containers, they make good cut flowers and smell like grapes. Plant pundits call angelonia the upscale summer snapdragon. The AngelMist series has been winning awards in plant trials in the U.S. for the last several years. Janet Rosenberg likes the effortless way the big angelonias fit into perennial border design, and loves the flower she describes as a "miniature orchid."

So, really, there is no excuse for planting the same red and white impatiens year after year. Have a fling with a new annual this summer. According to the pack people in California, watch out for vinca First kiss, Curly Coleus and the Marvelous marigold. There's sex appeal in those six packs, ready to transform your garden.