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A Biennial plant is a plant when the seeds are sown usually produces foliage, roots, and leaves and stems the first season and the second season will produce flowers and set seeds giving you a plant that then seems like a perennial thereafter.
A good example of this is the wonderful flowering plant the hollyhock. They look like they die each year, but they set their seed after the 2nd year and each year thereafter thus producing wonderful tall flowers each season.
Sometimes a biennial plant is referred to and spelled as biannual so keep that in mind when you are researching them.
Parsley is a biennial plant as is Sweet William. Even the carrot, a vegetable we would not consider a biennial plant, is one by growing a rosette of leaves in the spring and summer and a large, edible tap root that stores its nutrients that will enable it to grow flowers the following year provided we did not yank it out and use it the first year. Matter of fact, Brussels sprouts, Swiss chard, lettuce, celery, beets and cabbages are also biennial plants, but because they are grown and their leaves are used for food each year they are classified as annuals.
Sweet William is a species of Dianthus and is a wonderful biennial plant giving a showy patch of flowers the second year and every year thereafter if you sow them from seed. Of course, if you put in the plants that you have purchased or grown in your own greenhouse, then you will have them the first year in your garden. If you plant them from seed then plant the seed after the last frost.
Parsley is a biennial that will not bloom until the second year and it is a great plant to be a companion plant to your tomatoes simply because it will attract wasps and predatory flies that will kill tomato hornworms. Also the fragrance of the parsley will cover up the strong fragrance of your tomato plants which will help to reduce pest attraction.
Foxglove is another biennial plant that grows the first year without any flowers and then it continues to deliver beautiful flowers year after year when planted in the proper place, i.e. a shaded area and allowed to prosper.
Stocks are often treated as both annuals and biennials and the biennials are often referred to as “Brompton Stocks” and the annuals are referred to as East Lothian Stocks.
Luniaria is a biennial with lovely purplish flowers. Most biennials require a cold season before they flower.
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Author Bio Box: Arlene Wright Correll
 For more gardening or cooking information click http://www.learn-america.com/
To see Arlene’s Gardens and to read her gardening diaries and to take a walk through her pictorial garden or click on Arlene’s Books where you can download or buy her gardening & cook books, including her new book, “The ABC’s of Wine and Beer Making”. Remember to check out her artwork, especially of her fruits and vegetables. Arlene says, “All my royalties from the sale of my books go to the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and I thank you for visiting my site.”
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