The word 'annual' means yearly, and annuals are plants that grow from seed, flower, disperse their seeds and die in a single growing season. Most delphiniums are annuals, so are some herbs, and peas and cereals. Biennials Live for two years. In the first summer, the young plant grows a ring of leaves on an underground food store such as a bulb or taproot. The food store sustains it through the winter and in the spring sends up a stem that flowers in the summer.
Foxgloves are biennials, as are many vegetables.
Perennials Live for a number of years, surviving through the winters, like biennials, on food from an underground food store such as a bulb. Wallflowers, chrysanthemums, Michaelmas daisies and many other garden flowers are perennials. Bulbs, corms, rhizomes and tubers Many perennials sprout not only from seed but also from parts of the root or stem. This is called vegetative propagation. Plants such as lupins grow on the base of an old stem.