Garden Pictures Chat Corner

This is just such a beautiful house (and garden) at Steffi's :eek:

This is just such a beautiful house (and garden) at Steffi's :eek:

Thank you very much for the nice compliment :)

Is there actually a mnemonic or a symbol on a plant's label that allows me to distinguish annual from perennial plants? When I search for this online, I only find numerous pages explaining the difference. But not whether I can quickly recognize it somehow when I'm in the garden center. I don't want to have to google every variety all the time.

Is there actually a mnemonic or a symbol on the label of a plant that allows me to distinguish annual from perennial plants?
When I search for this online, I only find numerous pages that explain the difference to me. But not whether I can somehow quickly recognize it when I am in the garden center. I don't want to have to google every variety all the time.

If you buy plants in the garden center of a hardware store, for example, the perennial plants are labeled "perennials". That's how you recognize them. It will be the same in the garden center. Or you ask.

But there are actually symbols for the lifespan. You will definitely find them in identification books; in garden centers, I would now put a big question mark. Even if the symbols were there, unfortunately, it is not that simple. On the one hand, the distinction is not as sharp as one might think. Many plants that are actually annual can also be biennial, sometimes even perennial under certain conditions. Plantain-leaved viper’s bugloss would be an example of this. On the other hand, many "summer flowers" are actually perennial but cannot tolerate local winters and are therefore annuals in practice. And one more note. Annual does not necessarily mean that the plant is gone afterwards. Annual plants seed themselves and can reappear the next year under certain conditions (especially bare soil). However, many cultivated varieties are sterile.

Here, for example, is a 2-year-old that had pruned itself and was allowed to stay standing, it has become over 2 meters tall and has been flowering for 4 weeks.

We always have a plant exchange in April and September, where private individuals sell their cuttings or things they want to get rid of. You also always get an explanation there and can cheaply establish a basic stock. Maybe there is something like that where you are too.
Or classifieds are also a good way to get plants cheaply.