Annuals respond with vegetative growth but few flowers.
Too little rain can result in less growth and smaller flowers, if any. Tropicals work whether we have too much or too little rain during our long growing season, according to Linda Gay, assistant director at Mercer Arboretum and Botanic Gardens, where exuberant plants were thumbing their flamboyant foliage and flowers at the steamy heat on a recent tour of the expansive facility. Gay has found that big, bold and bodacious tropicals bring height, mass, texture and interesting color combinations to the garden. The facility serves the home gardener well, as it is a botanical library of proven and promising plants, and its periodic workshops further educate. Westringia rosmariniformis, with its rosemarylike foliage and white flowers with purple blush, for example, is a sun-loving member of the mint family from Australia that is thriving in a large, curving tropical display at Mercer.