What You Need to Know About Biennial Plants

If you're new to gardening, you're probably familiar with annuals and perennials, but biennial plants might be a mystery. These plants fit in between the two: unlike annuals that complete their life cycle in one year and perennials that return yearly, biennials live for two years. In their first year, they focus on growing roots, stems, and leaves, without flowering. In the second year, they bloom, produce seeds, and then die.

Choosing biennial plants instead of annuals or perennials might not seem like an obvious choice at first, but these plants have their unique role. You might even be surprised by how many biennials you already know. Read on to explore the benefits of biennial plants and some common examples to consider.

Advantages of Biennial Plants

If you're eager to see flowers bloom in your garden immediately, annual plants might seem like the better option compared to biennials. After all, why wait until the second year for your flowers to bloom when annuals will give you that in the first? And if you're looking for longer-lasting flowers, perennials, which live for at least three years, may appear to be a more obvious choice over biennials, which only last for two years, flowering only once before they die off.

That said, there are other aspects to consider that can make biennial plants the ideal choice—or at least a fantastic addition alongside other perennials or annuals in your garden.

Biennials offer a distinctive growth pattern that can bring visual interest to your garden in both years of their life cycle. While they won’t bloom in the first year, you'll still appreciate their foliage—and biennials are often more resistant to cold than annuals, allowing you to enjoy them for a longer period.

In contrast, biennial vegetables can be harvested during their first year, but are typically not edible in their second year. Because of this, many people treat these vegetables like annuals, harvesting them and removing them after the first year. However, it can still be beneficial to leave biennial vegetables in the ground during their second year as they can attract pollinators and produce seeds.

Biennial plants' ability to self-sow means you might not have to replant certain flowers at all. Although the original plants will be gone after two years, the seeds they leave behind could result in fresh flowers growing in the years to come—without any extra effort required from you.

Types of Biennial Plants

Most biennials are either vegetables or flowers. Here are some popular plants that you might not have realized are actually biennials.

• Parsley
• Broccoli
• Beets
• Carrots
• Onion
• Foxglove
• Sweet William
• Evening Primrose
• Black-Eyed Susan
• Hollyhock
• Forget-Me-Not
• Money plant