Should I dig up my Allysum?

Good morning, this is my first first post, as well as my first garden, so please excuse me if I ask some daft questions!

We have a lot of white Allysum growing in the garden, and although pretty it is now rather taking over.  I keep readng that it is a hardy annual plant, but would someone be kind and explain what this means in practice?  Should I leave some clumps in the ground so it comes back next year, or dig it all up to make room for some spring plants, sowing fresh seeds next spring?

Many thanks for your help

Hardy annuals germinate, flower, seed and die all in the same year. So, your plants won't come back next year. However, if you let them seed you may get new baby plants that survive the winter and start to grow strongly next spring. This works well if you have an informal garden; good plants to try this with are poppies.

If you want to plant things now, though, pull up your alyssum and plant away.

By the way, other types of plants are biennials, which germinate and grow one year and flower, seed and die the next year.

There are also perennials, which live for several years. Many of these die back to nothing over winter, producing fresh growth in spring (e.g., lupins, delphiniums) whilst others keep a few leaves above ground.

Thank you both, getting to grips with the terminology and the allysums now i hve no doubt I will be back to this forum very soon with other planty issues!