What is the difference between annuals and perennials?

• Annuals are plants that complete their life cycle in one growing season (spring – fall/frost).
• Perennials are plants that live for more than two growing seasons. They die back in winter and re-emerge in spring.

Additional plant types:

• Biennials require two years to complete their lifecycle. In the first season, they grow leaves near the soil, their second season, the stem grows, the plant flowers then produce seeds. That plant then dies but it’s seed replants and the cycle repeats. An example is Foxglove.
• Shrubs are deciduous or evergreen perennial plants with multiple woody stems or branches, usually from or near its base (root flare).
• Trees are woody perennials with a crown of branches developing from the top of a single stem or trunk.
• Tropicals are plants native to warm climates and are grown in other climates only in the warm summer months and then discarded or brought indoors as a houseplant.
• Houseplants are any plant grown for long periods indoors and are generally frost-tender species that would not survive outdoors in our cold climate.
• Herbs are plants with practical properties such as culinary or medicinal use.