Annual succession

With the temperature and humidity both hitting the 90s, summer in Florida (which starts in March and lasts at least until October) is no time to expend any more energy than necessary in the garden. I’ve discovered a trick that gives me new pots of annuals to keep up the color show over our endless growing season.

To start succeeding generations of readily self-seeding annuals such as vinca and impatiens, I fill pots with soil mix and tuck them under the canopy of a larger pot of these annuals in flower. Their seeds fall into the lower pot and begin to sprout in a few weeks, but I leave the pot next to the mother plant until the seedlings fill in. Then I move the young plants where I want them, or I grow them on for eventual transplanting.