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Cold Tolerant Annuals For Spring!

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 SPRINGTHYME IN THE GARDEN!!!

Spring is on its way! Temperatures may still be a little on the chilly side though! Here are 7 cold tolerant annuals for Spring!

Are you curious about cold tolerant annuals for Spring gardening? Let me introduce you to several of my favorites!

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If you are like me, as soon as the first warm day arrives, off to the garden center you race and purchase a cart full of blooming plants!  Only to find, the warm days are short lived and a cold wave comes blowing in!  Some of your beautiful plants may not withstand the cold snap.  But with some careful planning, you can have beautiful blooming plants outdoors in the early Spring even with the temperature swings! Let me show you a few of my favorite cold tolerant annuals for the Spring season.
 
The potting bench pictured above used to sit outside my flower shop, Petals & Porch Posts.  My entrepreneurial journey is highlighted here:
I often say I went from flowers to flour since the next stop on my entrepreneurial was Makin’ Pizza!
 
Back to the cold tolerant annuals!

Know Your Zone

The USDA has the country divided into various growing zones based on the average annual minimum winter temperature, divided into 10-degree F zones.  The zones range from 1a (Alaska) to 13 b (Puerto Rico).   The zones help gardeners determine which plants are most likely to thrive in which locations.  You can access the hardiness map here to get information about your growing zone. Find Your Zone
 
When I lived in Illinois and Ohio, I was living in the hardiness zone of 6a.  I became more familiar with annuals that could be considered frost tolerant.  They are also known as cold tolerant.  This means that they are annual plants that can withstand light frosts and can normally be planted before the average frost-free date.  If  temperatures fall much below freezing or if the plants are exposed to hard frosts, some damage to flowers and foliage can occur.  The frost-free date for Zone 6a is considered to be May 15th.
 
If the cold spell is going to last longer or be more than a light frost, you should either cover your plants with a sheet or if possible bring them into the garage or another place of shelter from the elements.  We had a brief cold snap in January in Southwest Florida and I had to bring in all my plants from the lanai and cover my plants outside with sheets!
 
potted plants brought inside from the cold
 

7 of my Favorite Cold Tolerant Annuals for Spring:

snapdragon

Snapdragons

Bubblegum Vista Petunia - Proven Winners                                                                                              Petunias

Dusty Miller

Dusty Miller

Dianthus in a Patio Pot

Dianthus

Pansies & Dianthus with Rabbit Accent

Dianthus & Pansies

Geraniums

pot of cold tolerant nemesia accented by a rustic wire bunny

Nemesia

How to Design a Patio Pot with Cold Tolerant Annuals

 3 of My Favorite Cold Tolerant Annuals

For Spring, I like to design a pink themed cold tolerant patio pot. The first step is to add potting mix to a 12″ terra cotta pot that I had given a makeover with white Chalked paint.

Terra Cotta Pot with soil

When designing a patio pot, I try to use the thriller, spiller, filler technique.  The thriller is the focal point.  The spiller is a plant that will grow or spill over the edge and filler is the plant or plants that fills in the empty spots.  For my pot, the petunias are actually filling both the filler and the spiller category.

In order to get a full look right away, I used quart sized containers of snapdragons and petunias.  The dusty miller was in a 4-inch pot and I also used another annual called bacopa which is also spiller.  Because I used larger plants to start with and I live in Florida, I will probably have to transplant this color pot into a larger pot in about a month.

I placed the snapdragon to the back of the container. Then I added the petunias to the front.  These petunias are the Proven Winners Bubble Gum Vista petunias.  To learn a little more about Proven Winners and their petunias, please check out this blog post.

Snapdragon in pot

Bubble gum Vista petunia in pot with Snapdragons

 

After adding the dusty miller and the bacopa, I filled in around the plants with extra potting soil.  To finish the color pot, I added sheet moss on top in order to help keep the moisture in.

The Early Spring Color Pot in the Garden

Early Spring Patio Pot in the Garden

A Pink Themed Patio Pot with Cold Tolerant Annuals

The light is so bright, you can barely see the rustic bunny peeking through the blossoms!  You can see the detail on him better in this photo!

and this one as well!

Yellow & Purple centerpiece for Early Spring

Early Spring Rustic Dough Bowl Centerpiece

Save This Pin For Later!

Patio Pots & European Dish Gardens

One of my very favorite things to do is to design using combinations of blooming and green plants.  When these combinations are for outdoors, they are called patio pots or color pots.  If they are going to be used inside your home and they are left in their original containers and grouped together in a basket or similar type container, they are called European Dish Gardens.

Red & White European Dish Garden with Candles

Red & White European Dish Garden For Spring

Spring vignette with blooming plants in a vintage basket. Old watering can in the background

Easy Spring Blooming Garden Basket

Other Garden Related Posts You Might Enjoy!

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gardening in the tropics

Extreme Makeover Home Edition  Philo, IL Sept 2009

salmon pink geraniums in a hanging basket

How to Design A Hanging Geranium Basket

Herb Themed display

Introduction to Dessert Herbs Part 1

outdoor dining table with Early Spring Centerpiece

Early Spring Blooming Plant Centerpiece

An Easter Poinsettia?

A week or so after Christmas one year, I brought this Peach Glitter Poinsettia outside and placed it in the back of this extra-large pot of Diamond Frost.  The poinsettia did remarkably well outside!  It was still going strong at Valentine’s Day and I wondered if it would make it to Easter!  and it did!  Now, I wouldn’t recommend doing this in zones lower than 10a but for those of you living in Florida, putting your poinsettias outside really extends their life!

Thanks for joining me today!

 

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  6. […] The next step in designing a European Dish Garden is choosing your plants.  Since it is Early Spring, I wanted to use plants that were cold tolerant. For this project, I picked a pot of bright yellow violas, a pot of white violas and a purple and yellow nemesia.  More information about cold tolerant annuals and how to use them in a patio pot can be found here: Let’s Design A Patio Pot with Cold Tolerant Annuals […]

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