Plants 101(a) - annuals vs biennials vs perennials

High school was a long time ago, I know. And unless you're a gardener, you've probably let everything you might have learned about plant reproduction slip out of your head.

But if you plan on growing or foraging for your own medicine (or food), you need to know this.

Today I'll cover the basics, including examples, and in the next post I'll cover the practical applications for growing or foraging; i.e. why any of this matters.

Hopefully, this won't be too boring .. it certainly isn't complicated.




Annuals - an annual is a plant that springs up from seed, flowers, sets seed and then dies in one season.

Herbal examples: chickweed, calendula, wild lettuce.

Vegetable/fruit examples: tomatoes, peppers, squashes and pumpkins (technically, these are fruits because the seed is contained within the part we eat), lettuces, spinach, sunflowers. Grains, legumes and pulses are annuals as well.

Biennials - these plants don't flower and set seed until their second year. Often they form a tap root and sometimes a rosette (a circle) of leaves that hugs the ground in the first year. After flowering and setting seed in the second year, the plant dies.

Herbal examples - burdock, evening primrose, shepherd's purse, mullein, parsley.

Vegetable examples - carrots, beets, onions, garlic, and some of the leafy greens, like kale (depending on the climate).

Perennials - there are two (main) types of perennials; herbaceous and woody.

Herbaceous perennials die back every winter, but return in the spring. Many (most?) will flower and set seed every year. Some of them also reproduce by other means than seeds, ie roots or rhizomes which can be broken off the parent plant and replanted elsewhere either by animals or other disturbances. Sometimes we use the above ground parts of these plants, sometimes we use the roots/rhizomes.

Herbal examples - St. John'swort, Solomon's Seal, dandelions, stinging nettles, violets. The mint family of plants, which is huge and includes the 'minty' mints, as well as monarda (bergamot), thyme, sage, oregano, lavender and others. Some of these will behave like woody perennials in a warm climate or sheltered location .. oh drat, did I not mention there are exceptions? Yep, there are exceptions.

Of course there are exceptions.

Vegetable examples - rhubarb, asparagus, sunchokes (aka Jerusalem artichokes), chives.

Woody perennials - pretty self explanatory, these are the plants that retain their strong, woody above ground parts all winter, then leaf out, flower and fruit each year. They can range in size from small shrubs to big trees.

Herbal examples - Leaves & flowers of linden trees, leaves of berry plants like raspberry and blackberry, barks of oak, aspen, catkins of alder - it's a huge category.

Fruit examples - fruit and nut trees, also hawthorn 'haws', rosehips, all the berries.

The woody perennials are divided further into deciduous (those that shed their leaves), evergreen (those that don't) and coniferous (plants with needles that produce cones ie pine) and I have no idea how to classify something like the tamarack tree that sheds its needles in winter .. in other words, I don't know it all and you don't have to either. Just a fairly good handle on this will take you pretty far.

Homework! - If you have plants in mind that you want to grow or gather this coming season, make a list now and do some research to see if you can find out which category they fit into.

Now here's a nice video from a gardener in Wales all about the wonders of perennial food plants. If you're at all interested in gardening, this is a must. Some of these plants have medicinal as well as food uses. All of them will grow in most climates - even mine, where the temps range from +35C in summer to -35C in winter!