Those are some big Incrediballs!

Last year my mom and I had a little to see who could grow more tomatoes at our shared community garden plot. I don't remember who won. I'm not sure anybody did. Tomatoes were plentiful last year, unlike this year, so really we all won.

Suffice to say, our family is just a wee bit competitive. Anyone who can turn gardening into a competition obviously likes to win.

I sent this photo to my mom to brag about the size of my Incrediball hydrangea blooms. I also shared it on Instagram and Facebook so if you want to follow all my plant touching exploits, you can do that there.

So I guess I shouldn't been surprised when I sent my mom a photo of my feeling up the largest of the Incrediball hydrangea blooms in my year and I got this reply.

Oh, game on, Mom. Game on.

So like any self-respecting overly competitive daughter I decided to take care of this "Mine's bigger" discussion immediately. No need to let this sort of thing fester.

I measured the biggest Incrediball bloom I could find: 11.5 inches in diameter. For reference, a basketball has a diameter of 9.39 inches.

I figured there was no way my mom's bloom could be bigger than that. In order to get photographic proof (I wasn't just going to blindly trust her measuring), I ran out to her house. And there I saw an enormous Incrediball hydrangea with probably 20 larger-than-a-basketball-sized flowers. (This is the part where I point out that she bought her Incrediball hydrangea as a two-gallon plant at about the same time I bought my little pint-sized Incrediballs. So you know, pretty much she's cheating smart.)

My mom's Incrediball hydrangea.

I knew I was in trouble.

Sure enough. The biggest bloom I could find (and trust me it was hard figuring out which one was the biggest) was 12.5 inches in diameter.

I guess it's clear who won. Perhaps this should be lesson to not get competitive about gardening. And certainly not with the person who taught you most of what you know about gardening. And DEFINITELY not when that person is your mom.

And yeah, I felt it up a little before I left. Sorry, Mom.

2010 plant highlights

I         haven't even finished cleaning up my 2009 garden      and my mind is already wandering to new plant introductions I'll want in my garden next year.

Proven Winners leads the field in new plant introductions, at least annuals, and has the backing of an enormous marketing strategy behind them. Take for example this Supertunia Pretty Much Picasso. It's fantastic, and I can see myself, along with the rest of the world, clamoring over this baby, assuming it lives up to the color in the pictures (just can't resist chartruese and pink). But I'm not going to be alone. On its Web site, Proven Winners promises its distributors a $100,000 promotion campaign for this plant alone.

Of course 2010 will also bring the wide distribution of a plant I was drooling over last year already. It's the awesome Incrediball hydrangea and you can be sure it's going to be all over nurseries come spring. I'm definitely picking up more than one of them.

Here's a boxwood that doesn't exactly have the panache of Pretty Much Picasso or Incrediball, but it's intriguing to me. It's called North Star, and it says it's "A superb new hardy boxwood with a dense globe shape that requires little if any pruning." It's hardy to zone 5, and I have to say ... I'm a sucker for "meatball" plants. I can't help it. Seems like this would do it all itself, without me getting involved and end up having it look too manicured, which wouldn't suit my cottage garden.


Another interesting hydrangea is one with a name that's trying to be catchy but it bugs me. But I digress .... it's called Invicibelle Spirit. Basically, its a pink Annabelle hydrangea. It's different, and I like that, but to I like hydrangeas that are cream and white and lime and, of course, blue (even if I have a tough time getting the Ph right to make them blue). Still, I expect it will cause a stir at the nursery.

I promise not to get all caught up in hydrangeas, but there's one more newbie I'm tempted to try. It's called Let's Dance Moonlight, which is one in a series of reblooming hydrangeas called Let's Dance (really? Let's Dance? Back to the marketing drawing board on that one, if you ask me.) OK, I know I just said I wasn't keen on pink hydrangeas, but they claim this one can go blue with the right Ph, so I'd be willing to give that a try. Endless Summer was a huge disappointment for me (and for a lot of other people, although there are people who still swear by it) so I hope that Let's Dance could be what Endless Summer was hyped up to be.


Which brings me back to Proven Winners' Picasso ... I'm wondering if it will be such an outstanding plant that it would be a success even without the $100,000 promo campaign, or if, like Endless Summer, it's really just about marketing and us gardeners are no more immune to it than anyone else.

So what do you have your eye on for next year's garden? Do you care about the name on the tag of a plant or are you more concerned about the plant itself?



Photos from Proven Winners and Spring Meadow Nursery

More new plants I love

Last time I focused on some of the great annuals that are new. This time we're talking perennials.

The first one on my list HAS be this beauty which I cannot find anywhere but if I do find one (at a nursery) I'll snatch it right up and figure out where to put it later.

It's the Incrediball hydrangea (Spring Hill Nurseries photo). Oh how I love everything this hydrangea claims to be. I hope it's all true (unlike the much-marketed Endless Summer hydrangea which has been a big disappointment for me and many other gardeners). This is an improvement on the Annabelle hydrangea, which I have and love, but it suffers from serious droopy stem syndrome. Incrediball is supposed to have much stronger stems and HUGE puffball blooms. If it's everything it claims to be I'll forgive the stupid name.

I have a thing for echinacea. Ever since the Itsaul Plants series came out with the beautiful Summer Sky and the rest of the "sky" series, I've been head over heels for this plant and on a bit of a mission to own every variety that I like (there are some I'm just not that keen about). Two of my favorites this year are Tomato Soup and it's natural partner Mac n' Cheese (Terranova Nurseries photos). I'm particularly excited about Tomato Soup. A RED echinacea! And I'm very happy to say I have several of each of these that I bought through the co-op sitting in the "greenhouse" getting big enough to plant.


I'm also developing a "thing" for heuchera. Terranova is the leader in new heucheras and one of the new ones I really like is Lime Marmalade. It's supposed to be bigger than Lime Rickey and it has a really nice ruffled leaf. I have a few of these in the greenhouse too. I just love pops of lime green in a shady bed.

OK, so those are a few of my new perennial fascinations, but I'm sure there are oodles more out there that have you salivating. So what did I miss?