I’ve underused annuals in my garden forever.

Part of it comes from my love of perennials where I get to watch the plants grow and develop over the years. I feel a connection and I like how the narrative is created over time. Each perennial has a story and that story changes from season to season.

Not so much with annuals.

Part of it also comes from a sort of snobbery. Annuals are for the weak. Annuals are too easy. You don’t have to work for their flowers; they just bloom all summer without fail.

But deep down, I understand the value of the annual. I get that they can be great space fillers. I get that that they can provide color all season and when planted in conjunction with perennials, can ensure there is always something going on. They can provide abundance and abundance is good.

So over the past few years I’ve incorporated more and more annuals into my garden. And I’ll be the first to admit, I’m kind of bad at it. But I’m trying.

When I did my video garden tour in the last post, some of you commented on my weak showing when it came to the annual plantings. And you couldn’t have been more spot on. Even I noticed it as I filmed the tour.

So I did something about it. Well something small about it, as a starting point.

Check out the video below and you’ll see how I hopefully transformed one section of the garden by following the rule of abundance or massing of like plants.

In this case it was with Globe Amaranth.  I took 5 plants that were planted way too formally and in too perfect of a straight line.

And planned to add them to another existing planting of five.

So out they went in no time …

… and were easily added to their fellow planting across the front walk.

This time I did all I could to fight against my need for order and planted them in a more asymmetrical pattern.

The Globe Amaranth are mixed in among Carex pensylvanica (Pennsylvania Sedge) where I hope they create a contrasting vignette that only gets better as the blooms continue to emerge all summer and into the fall.

I’ll be sure to update you on this planting as we move into July and August.

Step one in my annuals transformation is complete.