Annuals in the Ground

Profusion zinnias in a bowl

There is always a world of difference between the annuals I have in pots and the ones in the ground. In the garden they stay tiny and sometimes look stunted. 

In pots they thrive and bulk up. Actually that's true of perennials and even subshrubs too.

This year I planted Profusion zinnias in the kitchen courtyard and put two extras in a pot nearby. What a difference.

In the cramped terracotta bowl they are sizable and dense with lots of flowers going in all directions. I have to keep that pot watered every day.

In the garden each is cheerful and blooming, but only a few flowers at a time on tiny, four inch little plants. 

These also need daily water and I hand water them deeply every day. I fertilized every 10 days or so. But they stay little.

Cute and colorful but tiny

None of them touch. None have grown beyond the size they were in the nursery pot. The flowers are cute, but I know Profusion zinnias get about 12 inches tall and wide or more.

Just short little clumps of zinnias with a few blooms each

Nothing in this garden touches, really. The veronicas have bulked up after several years and the purple aster in front has gotten big, but everything else in front of the redtwig dogwood is a small clump. 

Coreopsis in a bowl keeps going and going

The several orange geums have been in the garden for years now, densely planted, and each carefully grows away from its neighbor, shrinking if it gets too close. They are watered and fertilized.

Even the gaura by the sundial, a nice sized plant when I put it in, has shrunk and gotten so wispy it isn't seen.

I tried several tickseeds in this garden and they shriveled. Badly. But dug up and put in a terracotta bowl, a yellow one has thrived, blooming densely all summer. It has been amazing.

I grew Strawberry Fields gomphrena in a container one year and it got big and bushy with lots of upright stems and bright red flowers all over.

Little gomphrena finally sending up buds

So I tried it in the ground this year and it sent up one (one!) long curving errant stem early on, but has remained a small tidy thing.

Now, in late August I am getting a half dozen buds coming out on a plant about six inches tall. This too is watered heavily every day and fertilized every 10 days.

Angelonias in the ground never took at all. Angelonias in pots are flowery and lovely.

I know the thin surface level roots of annuals get dried out quickly in this climate's harsh sun, but that's true whether in pots or in the ground, and I water constantly and deeply every day. 

What causes such a drastic difference? Soil pH level? Do these particular annuals need lower alkalinity?

Perennials do the same thing -- they look nice enough but only a few inches big in the ground but if I dig them up and pot them, they immediately bulk up, flower profusely and fill out. Clematis vines in the ground stay thin and sparse despite fertilizer and water but the bush clematis in the blue container grows rampantly.

Nothing touches, tiny shrinking clumps of plants, all I see is mulch

My yard looks good this year only because I have a ton of potted things by the garage door and in my prairie pot garden by the deck. I have other containers spread about in different spots too.

I don't want just a container garden. But next year I am not going to plant any annuals in the ground, it isn't worth it. 

I'm not sure what to do about the shrinking perennials and skinny clematis and even the lank caryopteris -- I do want some flowering  plants in my gardens.

Sigh

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