When garden centers are awash in beautiful blooms in vivid colors, it can be love at first sight. We dream of the coming profusions of blossoms and lush foliage that will grace our gardens by midsummer. Before your eyes become bigger than your garden plot, it’s helpful to head to garden centers with a shopping list in hand and a clear sense of the light and soil conditions of your site. For help in creating a list of desired plants, look to those that do well in our region and those that have won acclaim as tested performers.
Diane Blazek, executive director of the National Garden Bureau and the All-America Selections program (www.all-americaselections.org), says that the National Garden Bureau keeps track of the hundreds of new variety offerings each year, noting the hottest trends we’ll see in the 2014 seed catalogs and in our local greenhouses. Testers for the All-America Selections (AAS) program report their best performers from the previous season, the results of which point to the newest plants to win the All-America honors.
Contained Color
When it comes to choosing bedding plants, homeowners want plenty of color in season-long performers that can hold their own in compact spaces. The vibrant pink 2014 AAS winner “Serenita” angelonia fits the profile, with extraordinary drought and heat tolerance, all while continuing to offer prolific flowers throughout the season. For big color impact, the “Florific Sweet Orange” variety of the New Guinea impatiens offers a salmon bi-color punch to shade gardens. The ornamental pepper “NuMex Easter” is another color standout, winning 2014 honors for the pastel range of Easter egg-like hues from lavender to light yellow.
White, a strong contrasting color in the garden, is featured in the 2014 winning “Akila Daisy White” osteospermum with clean, fresh daisy-like blooms that freely flower all season long. Another long-blooming white winner, the delicate “Sparkle White” gaura, offers graceful full blooms with excellent branching to create a full profile in containers as well as garden beds.
Sunflower lovers have a compact option this year in the dwarf “Suntastic” variety, which produces up to 20 flowers in three successive blooming periods in pots, window boxes or a garden bed.
This year the National Garden Bureau named 2014 the year of the petunia, long a versatile garden favorite for its bold colors, profusions of blooms and easy maintenance. New varieties are adding dramatic leaf colors to complement the blossoms. The 2014 AAS winning “African Sunset” petunia brings a sense of designer color with its unique orange hues.
Echinacea was chosen as the 2014 perennial for the National Garden Bureau’s program because of the vast assortment of flower colors and shapes available in this garden staple.
Eat Your Yard
Growing your own vegetables and garnishes continues to be popular, with gardeners drawn to planting in small spaces and containers to make back patio harvests even handier. One of the year’s biggest standouts, the 2014 AAS vegetable award winning “Mascotte” dwarf French bean, has been adapted to thrive in window boxes as adeptly as garden beds, producing crisp slender pods perfect for eating fresh or lightly cooked. Additional award winning compact producers are the sweet “Mama Mia Giallo” yellow pepper and the Northeast regional winning “Patio Baby” eggplant.
Taste of Summer
Tomatoes are the quintessential summer fruit and the 2014 winners offer unusual varieties to please any home gardener. The heirloom-type “Chef’s Choice Orange” hybrid offers deep orange beefsteak-shaped fruit that is sweet and mild. For small-space gardens, the “Fantastico” bush tomato produces bountiful harvests of grape-shaped fruits. Pair with the non-bolting “Bam” basil for perfect seasoning all summer long.
Two new offerings, the colorful “Indigo Sun” yellow cherry tomato and the striped “Artisan” hybrids will make summer salads things of beauty. Top with delicate “Peas for Shoots” microgreens for a gourmet meal.
Also brightening summer meals are the festive “Halloween Mix” radishes in black, white, yellow and purple hues; the “Blue Podded” peas (eat raw when young, shell in mid-season or harvest dry pods late); and the “Jing Orange” okra.
Salad standout cucumbers are the National Garden Bureau’s vegetable of the year, prized for their adaptability. The prize-winning “Pick a Bushel” hybrid bush offers a high yield in a small space. For a fun contrast, plant the white “Silver Slicer” cuke as well.
Local Blooming Winners
With the proliferation of containers in the landscape, both as important design elements and for great curb appeal in small spaces, we rely on the Penn State Research farm in Landisville’s annual plant trials report to aid in the purchasing decisions. By testing hundreds of container plants to see how they weather Central Pennsylvania’s conditions throughout the growing season, lists of the best-of-the-best emerge.
Some of the new varieties that impressed, earning best of show awards as well as best of species designation and superior plant honors in 2013, are: “Star Dust Super Flash” euphorbia, “Mahogany Splendor” hibiscus, “Gold Dust” mecardonia, and “Titan Pure White” vinca. Three varieties of sweet potato vine (ipomoea) also earned the top designation in 2013: “Sweet Georgia Light Green,” “Illusion Midnight Lace” and “Desana Lime.”
Other top winners include the “Big Red” variety of begonias, the “ColorBlaze” line of coleus, the “Sarita” variety of geraniums, the “Graceful Grasses” variety of pennisetum, the “SunPatiens” line of impatiens, the “Supertunia” and “Trilogy” variety of petunia hybrids, the “Surdiva” variety of scaevola and the “Magellan” variety of zinnias.
Two white calibrachoa, “Celebration Capri White” and “Callie White,” were also favorites, as were: “Senorita Rosalita” cleome, “XXL Hidalgo” dahlia, “Pinto Premium Salmon” geranium, “Super Sonic Hot Pink” New Guinea impatiens, “Lucky Pot of Gold” lantana, “Lavender Stream” lobularia, “Phloxy Lady Hot Pink” phlox, “Sunsatia Cranberry” nemesia and “Graffiti Lavender” pentas.
Perennials like the “Galya Orange Spark New” gaillardia and the “Tiger Eye Gold” rudbeckia were also outstanding in the trials. According to trial director Sinclair Adam, a new perennial introduction, “Lemon Popsicle” kniphofia, did exceptionally well in 2013, “still sending up new flower stems on Oct. 20. Now that’s performance.”
Each summer, the trial gardens host an open house (save the date for July 26), where homeowners can see these plants in person for inspiration and combination ideas. An extensive site with pictures of these results can be found at www.trialgardenspsu.com. These recommendations consistently result in show-stopping containers.
