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Have you seen the new double Petunias? Or the deeper color of this year’s Pelargoniums? Maybe you’ve noticed that some of our favorites are back - but taller, or smaller than we’ve seen them before. Growers have once again upped the ante and are doubling the blooms, deepening the color, diversifying size, and opening the door to gardeners for even more possibilities in the garden or their containers. Petunias have seen lots of changes already: they are more floriflorous than they have ever been, turning into waves of purples, reds, whites and pinks spilling over baskets and adding super color variety to garden beds. Now, Goldsmith Plants has doubled the petals. Judges have already praised the new Reflections line at the 2002 Penn State University Trials. The plant itself has a “Compact round habit” growing with “high vigor” while the flowers are “well-displayed”. Like most Petunias, these require nitrogen to consistently produce their scores of blooms. In Goldsmith’s new Silhouette line, double Impatiens with names like ‘Appleblossom’, ‘Cherry Red’, and ‘Silhouette Orange’ are ready to pop into soil to start adding instant color. Beautiful deep green foliage provides the perfect foil for their rose-like blooms. If double is not what you are looking for in Impatiens, the new Firefly miniature impatiens line is almost always covered in dainty flowers. Achieving a maximum of twelve inches in height, they are perfect for containers or at the front of the planting bed. Firefly impatiens are available in ‘Watermelon’, ‘Light Salmon’, ‘Blush Pink’, ‘Salmon’, ‘Lavender’, ‘Orange’, ‘White’, and ‘Red’. In the 2002 bedding trials, The Niagara Parks Botanical Gardens had nothing but praise: “Fantastic ground cover, just covered in tiny flowers”. Like most Impatiens, these prefer partial sun. In their Eclipse Zonal Geranium line, Goldsmith has hit a winner with ‘Rose Splash’ and ‘White Splash’. These two pelargoniums have dark foliage to show off the full heads of blooms. What makes these blooms different? The spots you will see in the centers of the individual flowers. The ‘White Splash’ has bright fuchsia spots and the ‘Rose Splash’ has darker rose-colored spots. And if you were disappointed with the reds in this line last year, this year they are deeper and richerŅa hummingbird’s delight. Euro-American has taken the trend of diversifying foliage for shrubs and perennials and pursued that with annuals. Their European Uprights Fuchsias now include ‘Autumnale’, a trailing fuchsia with golden, orange and plum leaves. Hardy to zone 8, ‘Autumnale’ adds foliar warmth to containers, a welcome sight in those still nippy early spring days. Also new in the Shadow Dancer Fuchsia hybrids line is ‘Shadow Dancer Violette’, with creamy sepals and a rosy pink corolla. These beautiful flowers will complement any mixed container or hanging basket with its twelve-inch compact habit. For more foliar finesse, Euro-American has released two new Acalyphas. ‘Ceylon’ displays variegated plum, green and pink leaves; and ‘Copperleaf Plant’ parades pale yellow leaves with coppery and bronze highlights. Peferring sun down to partial sun, the ‘Ceylon’ achieves fourteen inches in height while the ‘Copperleaf Plant’ reaches a sizeable twenty-six. I’d like to put in a plug for two plants that are new to me since I haven’t seen them in nurseries. Monopsis unidentata ‘Bronze Beauty’ and M. unindentata ‘Royal Flush’ are both summer-flowering, trailing plants. ‘Bronze Beauty’ has a golden flower with a plum center, and ‘Royal Flush’ combines violet with plum. Both will team well with the often-used Bacopa in a hanging basket. One other trailer to try is Nierembergia ‘Blue Eyes’. With its violet and yellow throat inside a white flower, its flowers appear to have its eyes on you all summer long. It stands up well to heat and humidity and tops out at sixteen inches tall. A common problem with Verbena is its susceptibility to powdery mildew. Goldsmith Plants has bred the Lanai Verbena line grown by The Flower Fields. This compact plant is hardy to zone 8, comes in a range of whites, purples, magentas and pinks. New this year are ‘Red,’ ‘Lavender Star’ which is a white and lavender stripe, ‘Peach’ with peachy yellow and pink blooms, ‘Deep Pink’ with a bright pink flower and yellow center and ‘Royal Purple With Eye’ which is a deep purple with a yellow eye. These plants can be used with success trailing over rockery walls as well as in containers. Usually Lotus flowers require forty-degree nights for bloom production. Euro-American has developed Lotus ‘Amazon Sunset’ with yellow-orange blooms and silvery gray foliage that prefers 55-60 degree nights. It grows 6 to 8 inches tall and likes full sun. S&G Seeds has made a major breakthrough with Coreopsis. Coreopsis grandiflora ‘Heliot’® has won the Fleuroselect Gold Medal for 2003. With its golden petals and brown centers, it is now being released to nurseries. This hardy bedding plant likes sun and is drought tolerant once established. Who is Fleuroselect? It’s an international organization comprised of breeders and distributors of flowers. They test them, recognize new varieties, and award the best. An award from Fleuroselect means the plant is top-notch in the eyes of breeders and distributors from all over the world. Also from S&G Seeds is Lavandula angustifolia ‘Blue Scent’™. ‘Blue Scent’™ blooms early and in the first year. With its compact habit, it performs well in either beds or containers. From Danziger Flower Farms come some beautiful Torenias and Helicas. Torenia ‘Violet Moon’® and ‘Rose Moon’® add to their Moon line. Their large pink or rosy flowers are backed by yellow green foliage. With their compact trailing habit, they look marvelous in hanging baskets and have a long flowering season. Helica® Bronze and Helica® White and Helica® Plum are all early, abundant flowerers and vigorous growers. These are compact plants suitable for hanging baskets. From Sakata Seed comes a new Cyperus called ‘Wild Spike’. Achieving 14 inches in a container, this annual adds foliar texture. Cyperus is a tropical plant, but here it is treated as an annual. The exotic richness they can add to pots or beds if only for a season may be just the thing to catch the eye with its alluring texture or blooms. This is only a sampling of what’s new, and any of these annuals can be placed in either a bed or a pot. But not everyone feels comfortable putting containers together. With so many plants to choose from, it can often be a confusing thing to put together a pot which will thrive in the conditions where it’s placed. Some deck containers, for instance, are in shade, or only partial sun. Some may have drip irrigation and some may be on permanent display. See the sidebar for help with designing, soil selection and plant choices. I was inspired by these sites and new plant selections and found that they gave me just the impetus I needed to get out there and redo my deck containers. Now you know what I’m doing this weekend! Recommended Sites Euro-American has its own site with container ideas as well. Cultural information and other new selections are shown on this site. Proven Winners also has a site with tips on containers. If you click on the thumbnail, it will tell you what the plants are and show you how to arrange them in the container. ~ Nancy Tom is an environmental horticulturist who designs, installs and maintains landscapes for Down-to-Earth Gardens, Inc. This article was written for Garden Showcase, May 2004. ~ Archived Articles |
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