Annuals vs Perennials: Differences And Great Types For Nashville

Knowing The Difference Between Annuals And Perennials Can Help You Create An Even More Amazing Garden In Nashville

Annual and perennial refer to how long a plant will live for. Annuals live for a shorter amount of time than perennials and need replanting every year. Perennials can keep coming back year after year as long as they are well cared for. You can keep reading to find out some of the best ones for the Nashville area. 

Summer Annual Plants At JVI Secret Gardens

It’s Time For A New Look

“Well, everything’s dead now, again.” Rebecca sighs in frustration.

She’s having a hard time getting her plants to live as long as they supposedly should. To be fair this is only the second time she’s tried this gardening, plant thing.

It’s not as easy as it seems.

Dead looking garden

Rebecca decides that instead of just buying the plants she likes she needs to do some research to see which ones will actually survive in Nashville. She remembers hearing something about annuals vs perennials so she decides to look that up first. Then she can try to find more plants in an online garden center.

The Differences In Annuals vs Perennials

Annuals only live for one growing season while perennials can live for several. Annual plants are nice because you can try different looks and plants each year. Perennials are great for the opposite reason: consistency. Annuals also bloom for an entire season while perennials bloom for a shorter time.

Some annuals can self-seed, meaning they can basically plant themselves and grow again next year.

Perennial knockout roses
Perennial Roses
Annual petunias
Annual Petunias
Annual petunias
Annual Petunias
Perennial knockout roses
Perennial Roses

Most gardeners have a mixture of these types of plants in their garden so they can have something blooming at all times of the year.

Rebecca thinks this is a great idea and will definitely be doing that for her garden. Now she just needs to know which plants are which.

Great Annuals For Nashville

Some favorite annuals for Nashville gardeners include:

  • Petunias
  • Marigolds
  • Violas
  • Mums
  • Pansies
Violas are a great annual plant

Now Rebecca’s moving on to perennial plants.

Wonderful Perennials For Nashville

A few of the better perennials for Nashville include:

  • Coneflowers
  • Yarrow
  • Chrysanthemums 
  • Daisy
  • Verbenas
Coneflowers are a great perennial plant

While finding all this out Rebeccas also discovers that Nashville’s plant hardiness zone is 7a. Plants that have a hardiness level of that or higher have a better chance of surviving.

What’s Next?

Rebecca still needs more information if she’s going to have a successful garden. Her next step is to find a few low maintenance plants to start out with.