It’s only intuitive that biennials have a two-year life cycle.
But the plant is not the same both years.
What Is a Biennial Plant?
The Spruce / Gyscha Rendy
A biennial plant requires all or part of two years to complete its life cycle.
During the first season, it produces leaves and food storage organs.
The plant overwinters, and then produces flowers, fruit, and seeds during its second season.
The Spruce / Gyscha Rendy
During extreme environmental conditions, biennials can complete their life cycles in one year.
Want more gardening tips?
It will self-seed if the flower heads are allowed to dry.
The Spruce / Evgeniya Vlasova
During the first year, only a rosette of leaves will appear.
The second year a tall spike appears with showy blooms.
If allowed to dry, flowers will go to seed to maintain a nearly perennial growth pattern.
The Spruce / Evgeniya Vlasova
The flowers bloom in late spring to summer and the fruits appear in midsummer.
The flowersattract pollinatorsbut, unfortunately, turn into burs.
It can be found in moist open woods, meadows, ditches, and along stream banks.
The Spruce / Evgeniya Vlasova
Garden Angelica
Garden angelica (Angelica archangelica) is a biennial herb in thecarrotfamily.
It has a strong odor and a warm aromatic sweet taste similar to licorice.
Propagation can be done by seed or root cuttings taken in the second year.
American bellflowerBrian Woolman / Getty Images
They have an upright form with vibrant, sweet-smelling, bell-shaped flowers.
‘Siskiyou’ is a long-blooming and easy-care cultivar that forms a dense mat of lance-shaped leaves the first year.
The lacy, white flowers appear in its second year of growth from mid-summer to mid-fall.
Bablu Mrong / Getty Images
It propagates easily from seed and spreads aggressively.
Black-Eyed Susan
Black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta) are an easy to grow biennial in the garden.
A fast grower in the aster family, it blooms profusely in mid-to-late summer.
The Spruce / Evgeniya Vlasova
The flowers attract a variety of pollinators and the plant is moderatelyresistant to deer, salt, and drought.
They naturalize easily in almost any bang out of soil.
In the second year, a tall flower spike of fragrant yellow flowers appears.
The Spruce / Adrienne Legault
The plant will die back completely after flowering, but self-seeds.
The Spruce / Evgeniya Vlasova
Iva Vagnerova / Getty Images
The Spruce / Evgeniya Vlasova
