No matter that I have been planting annuals for the better part of 25 years; I have yet to get to that point where I have had enough. It’s a yearly conversation I have with myself, usually in late February. Do I still want to do this? Would I like some other career? Am I done with my career-would I just like a job? Another words, I am wringing my hands and fretting such, it would make you laugh.
Incidentally, my idea of a good job would be to gang mow 1-75 between Detroit, and Flint, and back. Repeatedly, through 3 seasons. No phones to answer, no problems to solve-just headphones blasting whatever music seems good that day. A responsibility for short grass, and short grass, only. Some days, the Mozart Requiem (fall music for sure) and other days, Aretha Franklin, or the Propeller Heads. Or Bob Dylan-that would be good. I would sculpt that grass for miles, and look forward to that sculpture’s next incarnation. I would park my mower and that job at the end of the day, and head for home. 
But I am not ready for that, yet. I still love that I have my home and my garden-but also that I have lots of other gardens that belong to me in a certain way, as I’ve designed and planted them.
There are the people that own those gardens with whom I have a relationship. I think God steered me to this career-as I have more gardens and landscapes than years left, that I want to plant.
That an annual garden, or any garden for that matter, is ephemeral is key to my love for them. So intensely present all season, one good frost and poof, gone. Why do without memories like these?
Annual flowers on a terrace do a lot to warm up all the hard surfaces. I pay particular attention to the overall plant height and composition of those pots, as they are usually viewed up close, and while sitting.
All of us know what is spoken, or made from the heart, and what is theatre. How you landscape your home, how you decide what pots, and what placement, and what flowers, or maybe no flowers-I cannot explain this any better but than to say that what I might see at your home, should convince me it is you, speaking.
How a landscape convinces the viewer, how a landscape is a complete world, with its own rules and its own language, is a considerable part of its beauty. The genuine voice behind the landscape brings life to that landscape. The life that nature empowers is formidable. The life, and voice, of a person is equally formidable. How interesting-that relationship.
Though riddled with blooming weeds, or dead patches of this or that, or blurred with centuries of moss, they are powerfully evocative, and beautiful. The history of those genuine voices evokes memories in those of us who visit those gardens-our own memories.
An authentic voice-you have one, ready and waiting. Yours is better, you might say. Maybe I only have more practice.
On the subject of annuals, you need to decide first where you might want them. Let’s start with your front door. 
How you announce the entrance to your home is not only about the architecture. It’s your home, so your voice should be evident-clearly, confidently.
If you are exuberant, and welcoming of friends, neighbors, new people, and your daughter’s softball team, say so. 
If the mid-century modern, or contemporary design of your house makes certain demands that you hear, listen.
