Biennials are generally very beautiful plants, with most attractive flowers. They are somewhat more trouble for the gardener, since they keep growing during their first year and do not bloom until the second. Their great advantage is that their seeding stage produces new plants which will bloom again two years later, making it unnecessary to plant additional seeds.

The biennials are usually planted in early summer and transplanted to good soil when they are large enough to handle. It is a good idea to pot them at this time, particularly in areas where plants cannot be left outdoors all winter. In some cases, they can be transplanted to a cold frame, and then placed in the flower bed the following spring.

The requirements of careful soil preparation apply to biennials as well as annuals. After planting, if you want a continuous new growth of plants, it is best not to weed and cultivate too assiduously. If a really fastidious biennial patch is planted, it will be necessary to replace the plants with new ones each year.

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