Forever friends or casual admirers?
Choosing perennials or annuals will have an effect on how your garden grows. If your idea of a thrill is seeing baby green or red shoots pushing their way up through the spring soil each year, perennials are the way to go. With the right care, they will come back each year to greet you with the coming of spring. If bursts of color, like fireworks on the Fourth of July, are more your thing, opt for annuals that will bloom all season long and deliver consistent colorful blooms. Sadly, annuals have a life span of only one year; once the Fall frost arrives, annuals are out of here.
Think of perennials as permanent.
They tend to cost more than annuals, but they are a permanent investment in your landscape, as long as you choose wisely and provide proper care. Perennials' longer life span is often dependent on their ability to self-seed. And that's where you come in, with where to position them in the garden, how often to water and fertilize, and proper prepping of the soil. Are there exceptions to this simple explanation? Of course. There are tender perennials, which require some TLC to make it through the winter. And there are annuals up here in New England that perform like perennials in the sunny south.
Some Foxgloves are biennial.
And just when you think you have it straight, along comes Foxglove. Certain varieties of this beautiful plant are biennial. They will take a year off, then return, every other year. Unless, of course, they've succeeded in self-sowing, and their off-spring appear in the year the main plant takes off. But whoever said gardening was easy?