Gold Coast Gardener

October 1, 2006

By Gene Joyner, Extension Agent
Palm Beach County Cooperative Extension Service

Many types of flowers and bedding plants are now becoming available at your favorite retail garden center and nursery and this is the season that most people put these in for the upcoming fall and winter months. Generally we have two major seasons for bedding plants, fall and winter and then late spring and summer.

Plants put in this time of year normally will last until April or even early May until it gets too hot and dry and they have to be replaced with ones more heat resistant for the rest of the spring and summer months.

If you really like flowers, this is the time of year though to do a lot of landscaping and add a lot of color to your home, pool area, porch area, or even inside the main part of the house.

Some of the favorite flowers this time of year include things such as impatiens, begonias, petunias, salvia, marigolds, alyssum, celosia and colorful foliage such as coleus.

When selecting bedding plants make sure that you have prepared the outside growing area properly for the longest display of color. Most bedding plants need plenty of sunlight and do poorly in deep shade. The exception being impatiens which can tolerate fairly heavy shade and still do a good job.

If you have areas that don’t have good drainage, this restricts the types of flowers you can put in and for best results plant most flowers in slightly elevated beds that are 2 to 4 inches above the normal grade of the surrounding soil. This late in the year we don’t get every day rains, but we can still get occasional thunderstorms that drop several inches of rain in a short period. If the soil stays puddled for too long a period potential root damage can occur to your flowers or you could have increased problems with diseases.

If you have poor sandy soil many people will incorporate some organic material into the planting site and many bedding plants really respond to this. Organic materials commonly used include peat moss or various types of manure. Work this into the top 3 to 4 inches and this will not only help the plants hold nutrients and water, but as they decompose they will add nutrients back to the planting site as well.

If you choose to garden strictly in containers, there’s certainly no problem with that. Make sure that you use well drained potting mixes so you don’t run the risk of root rot if they get frequent rainfall or get over irrigated.

Most bedding plants like light frequent applications of fertilizer because fertilizers help to maintain high bloom production and you can use soluble fertilizers and there are many brand name products, or you can choose to use granular products less often. In containers many people use time released products that will feed for several months in some cases so you don’t have to remember to fertilize them on a real frequent schedule.

Bedding plants in containers can be displayed in a variety of ways and some people like bedding plants in hanging baskets or planters and many of the cascading type bedding plants such as petunias look very nice in raised containers where they can cascade over the edge.

As with most plants bedding plants can attract pests that will chew the foliage or suck the sap from the leaves and flowers so regular inspections of the garden to check for potential problems is essential. When problems are noticed, identify them quickly and decide on the appropriate response. In some cases chemical applications may not be necessary and you can simply hand pick problems off if there are not a large number of insects involved.

If the flowers you’re using grow very big, it doesn’t hurt in most cases to do some light pruning or reduction of the size of the plant. This will cause the plant to remain out of flower for a short period of time, but typically they go back to a flowering cycle quickly.

If you need advice on selection and maintenance of bedding plants and flowers typically used in our area, you can get some valuable printed information free at your county Extension office. Also Master Gardeners can answer questions about any types of plants and their care over the telephone during normal business hours. Dial 233-1750 in the north and central county area or 276-1260 in the south county area.