Have You Grown All 8 of These Classic Annual Flowers? Only Serious Gardeners Can Say They Have

Annuals are cheap, fast, and mostly forgiving, which is part of why they end up in every serious gardener’s rotation eventually. Plant them in spring, get color through the first frost, then pull them when the season is over. No overwintering drama, no waiting years to see what a plant does.

Grow a few of the right ones for a couple seasons and the whole process gets pretty automatic. Their easy blooms and predictable results are some of the biggest draws of growing annual flowers and why they are a part of almost every gardener’s landscape.

But which annual flowers are the favorites of the most serious gardeners out there? Which ones do serious gardeners say are absolute must-haves? I’ve compiled a list of the annual flowers that should be on any true gardener’s bucket list.

Classic Annual Flowers

The classic annual flowers below cover shade and full sun, cool climates and hot ones, as well as dry and moist soil conditions. Whatever the garden situation, a few of these will fit into your garden.

1. Zinnia

Sow zinnia seeds outdoors after your last frost date. Keep the soil from drying out completely in the first few weeks, then mostly leave zinnias alone. Heat doesn’t slow them down, dry spells don’t finish them off, and they attract butterflies and bees without any extra effort.

Tall cutting varieties of zinnias can reach 4 feet (1.2 m) tall and make solid vase material. Shorter types of zinnias stay under a foot and fit neatly at the front of a bed or in a container. Pruning shears from Felco make quick work of deadheading a full row, which is really the only maintenance these plants need.

Shop zinnia seeds and plants from Burpee in a wide array of colors and bloom types.

2. Petunia

Trailing types of petunias in a hanging basket will spill two feet (60 cm) down by midsummer and keep blooming until frost. Giving them a slow-release fertilizer, like this one from Burpee that's designed to boost blooms, at planting and watering when dry is about all the upkeep involved in growing petunias.

Choosing the right type of petunia is important, though. Larger-flowered varieties put on a showier display, but can look ratty after heavy rain. Smaller-flowered kinds are tougher and keep producing more steadily through rough weather.

Full sun gets the best out of any of them. Pinch back leggy stems mid-season and they’ll branch out and fill in rather than just stretching. Growing a basket of trailing petunias at least once in your lifetime is definitely worth doing! The volume of blooms from just a single plant is hard to believe until you’ve seen it yourself.

Explore dozens of petunia plants available at the Home Depot.

3. Snapdragon

Cool-season timing is the whole game with growing snapdragons. In early spring and again in fall, they’re hard to beat for color and vertical interest. Tall types grown for cutting reach 3 feet (90 cm) tall or higher. Dwarf types of snapdragons stay under a foot (30 cm) and suit containers or window boxes well.

Summer heat tends to shut down snapdragon blooms, which catches people off guard the first time around, but that’s just the nature of a cool-season plant. In zones 8-10, they often overwinter well and keep blooming for a second year.

Try a low-growing snapdragon cultivar, like the 'Magic Carpet' blend from Botanical Interests, to create a colorful groundcover.

4. Impatiens

Most annuals need sun to perform well, but impatiens don’t, which is why they’re worth growing. Deep shade under trees, the north side of the house, spots that get an hour or two of light at best – impatiens handle all of it well and bloom the whole season with no need for deadheading. The dim corners that no other plants will tolerate, that’s where impatiens really come into their own.

Water is the one thing these shade-loving flowers are fussy about. Let plants dry out and they collapse fast. Though they usually pull out of it as soon as they get a drink. New Guinea impatiens can take more sun and have bolder foliage, if the standard varieties seem too plain to you.

You can find a wide variety of impatiens seeds and plants from Burpee online.

5. Sunflower

From seed to 6 feet (1.8 m) tall in a single season with almost no maintenance required along the way – sunflowers are absolutely must-have annuals every gardener needs to try at least once.

Direct sow sunflower seeds in full sun after the last frost, water until they’re established, and then step back and enjoy the blooms. Single-stem types of sunflowers produce one large head and work well planted in succession for a longer harvest window. Branching types put out multiple smaller blooms over a longer stretch without any extra effort.

Goldfinches and chickadees love the seedheads once they dry – it’s worth leaving a few standing for that reason alone. Hot sunny summers suit these flowers well, and they keep performing through the kind of heat and humidity that slows down other warm-season annuals.

Explore tons of bright and cheery sunflower seeds from Burpee.

6. Pansy

When the nursery shelves are mostly bare in early March, pansies are usually already out front. They go in before the last frost, shrug off light snow, and bloom in colors that range from pale cream through deep purple-black. Beds, borders, containers all work fine for these delicate annual beauties.

In zones 8-10, they bloom throughout winter without stopping. Once temperatures climb above 80°F they start declining and aren’t worth fighting. Pull them up and move onto other summer annuals.

Keep pansies well-watered during blooming. A 4-in-1 soil meter from Amazon is useful for watering in containers, where potting mix dries out faster than it appears from the surface.

Shop pretty pansy seeds and plants from Burpee for your spring or fall garden.

7. Geranium

Geraniums have been showing up in window boxes and garden beds for centuries, which is a reasonable sign that many gardeners love them and wouldn’t grow a garden without them.

Heat doesn’t bother geraniums, dry spells don’t finish them off, and their red, pink, purple, orange, and salmon blooms hold their color in direct sun without fading. Snap off spent flower clusters as they fade and the plant keeps pushing new ones throughout the whole summer season.

In frost-free zones, geraniums overwinter on their own. In colder climates, dig them up before the first freeze and store them somewhere cool and dry until spring. Most geraniums come back without much fuss. Scented geraniums are a different thing entirely, though, but they’re worth tracking down just for the smell.

Get annual geraniums from Home Depot in an array of lovely hues.

8. Marigold

Walk through almost any productive vegetable garden in summer and there are marigolds somewhere in it because they are often used in companion planting. There is some evidence that marigolds can help deter certain pests, which is why they’ve been a companion planting staple for so long. But their beautiful orange, yellow, and red blooms are reason enough to grow them.

French marigolds stay low and are good for edging or in pots. African marigolds climb up to 3 feet (90 cm) tall and produce dense globes of blooms that hold up as cut flowers.

Provide full sun, average soil, and deadhead when you can get around to it. During a brutal August when other annuals are looking rough, marigolds tend to be the only ones still going strong.

Shop stunning marigold seeds in a range of warm colors and bloom styles from Botanical Interests.