GREAT NEW PLANTS FOR 2016: SHRUBS EDITION

A couple weeks ago, I shared some new annuals for 2016, and today I'm sharing new shrubs that look interesting.

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1. Petite Pillar Dwarf Boxwood: Plant producers are smart to be working on new boxwood introductions because I still think it's the single hottest shrub of the moment. This one grows in a naturally columnar shape, topping out at 2 to 3 feet. Buxus microphylla 'MonAlex': Zones 5-9, full to part sun, 2-3 feet tall x 2 feet wide.

2. At Last Rose: This apricot beauty is said to have the disease resistance and low-maintenance needs of popular landscape roses such as Oso Easy and Knockout roses, but unlike others, doesn't lack the rose scent. It has a lot of petals so it takes on an old rose look. I'll admit, I'm wary of scent descriptions, but if this one is all it is cracked up to be, it'll have a spot in my garden. Rosa x 'Horcogjil': Zones 5-9, full sun, 30-36 inches tall and wide.

3. Loropetalum Jazz Hands Dwarf Pink: I can't grow this little dark-foliage beauty, but I sure wish I could. What more could you want in a plant: gorgeous purple foliage, hot pink dainty flowers and all in a package that can fit in a container or at the front of the border. Loropetalum chinese 'Kurenai': Zones 7b-9b, full to part sun, 1-3 feet tall x 3 feet wide.

4. Lil' Ditty Witherod Viburnum: So many shrubs are being downsized these days, which makes sense as the popularity of small-space gardening grows. This diminutive viburnum is another front-of-the-border charmer with fluffy white flowers that can grow a healthy crop of fruit so long as a pollinating plant is nearby (Viburnum nudum 'Brandywine' is one). It's super hardy and, like most viburnums, a cinch to grow. Viburnum cassinoides 'SMVCDD': Zones 3-8, part sun, 1-2 feet tall and wide

5. Moonlight Parfait Winter Daphne: Foliage shrubs are way too often overlooked, but they are so important in a garden. The amazing variegated foliage on this daphne will brighten up any partially shaded corner. It does get sweet-smelling pink flowers, but honestly they are an afterthought when the foliage is this pretty. Daphne odora 'Monstrik': Zones 7-9, full shade to partial sun, 3-4 feet tall and wide.

6. Gatsby Pink Oakleaf Hydrangea: You are probably impressed that I managed to get through this list with just one hydrangea on it. Gatsby Pink was my pick to win Shrub Madness and I was really wrong. It was out in the second round, but I still think it's a phenomenal plant. First of all, oak-leaf hydrangeas are lovely. They have interesting foliage that usually gets a nice color change in fall. The long flowers look like a combination of a paniculata hydrangea and a lacecap, and start white but quickly turn pink. Hydrangea quercifolia 'JoAnn': Zones 5-9, part sun, 6-8 feet tall and wide.


What new shrubs are you hoping to add to your garden this year?

GREAT NEW PLANTS FOR 2016: ANNUALS EDITION

I am a sucker for new plants. I'm also a sucker for old, tried-and-true varieties, but there is something fun about checking out all the latest and greatest that will be hitting garden centers this year. I'm doing a little series on some of the new plants I'm most excited about this year and I'm kicking it off with annuals. 

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1. Bidens Campfire: I will admit that when Proven Winners sent me this plant last summer to trial, I was less excited about this one than any other. I didn't love the colors, for one, and I wasn't sure about the smaller flowers. It probably ended up being my favorite of the new things I grew last year. It bloomed its head off from June until early October and was a lovely little charmer. I'm completely sold on it.

2. Supertunia Latte: This petunia doesn't do a lot for me on it's own, but I think it will be one of those stunning plants that really makes a container design and make the other plants shine.

3. Verbena bonariensis Meteor Shower: Of all the new plants I'm looking forward to growing, this is my No. 1 must have. I also received this plant to trial last year and my love for it is borderline inappropriate. It's much shorter than the usual Verbena bonariensis, so it is perhaps a little easier to use in containers. The information says it's less prolific as far as reseeding goes, which isn't really a good thing as far as I'm concerned because I want more, more, more. Jack Barnwell used this dotted throughout the borders at the Hotel Iroquois garden last summer and the effect was stunning.

4. Pansy Cool Wave Lemon Surprise: I find myself more and more attracted to pansies and this was seems like quite the charmer. It's a nice, soft lemon yellow and every so often a blue-purple bloom pops up.

5. Sedum Lemon Coral: I'm not sure why this is listed as new this year, but I have grown it for two years and it's a must-have for me. I've grown it both in containers and in the ground and it thrives in both places. You don't need to do anything for this plant. Put it in, water it when you water other stuff and stand back.

6. Zinnia Uptown Frosted Strawberry: This zinnia, which are easy to grow by nature, looks more like a dahlia than a zinnia to me. I love the ombre colors.

What new annuals do you have your eye on this year?

THREE PLANTS I'LL GROW THIS YEAR

Much of the past decade of gardening at my house has been an alternating pattern of creating new gardens and improving existing gardens. A couple years ago I realized that I probably have as much garden square footage as I can handle (and frankly probably too much) at this point in my life, so my focus has shifted to refining the existing gardens, some of which were installed in haste and not well thought out.

I don't regret just getting on with those gardens, because as we know, gardens are ever changing, one of many reasons why gardening never gets boring. I've made no secret of the fact that some of the first gardens I created were not really designed at all, but had random plants plunked in them. Now, as I revisit those areas, I'm taking a much more conscious and measured approach in my plan. My color and plant palette is more restrained (although still probably not restrained enough) and I give much more thought to plants selection.

Last fall I cleaned out a large section of what I call the patio garden, the most prominent garden we have. For years, much of that part was filled with rudbeckia and anemones that were allowed to spread out. Both are excellent plants that I wouldn't be without, but I struggled to make them work in that location and constantly struggled with plant combinations. I incorporated a fair amount of compost and leaf mold to refresh the soil there so a blank slate will await me in spring.

It looks like a complete mess in this photo that I took in fall, with overgrown annuals surrounding it. But I have a vision of a more refined space.

Although I've not worked up a complete planting plan for the area, I've selected three plants that will make up a bulk of the planting there (and that I'll repeat farther east in that garden).

Fall color: White Flower Farm photo

In flower: Grimms Gardens photo

The first is Amsonia hubrictii. This is not a new plant. In fact it was the perennial plant of the year in 2011, but for whatever reason I didn't take note of it then. Then last year, I kept running into it at various gardens and couldn't get it off my mind. It's the foliage that I love. Wispy, threadlike leaves create a cloudlike texture that I love. And it turns a brilliant yellow in fall, which will provide some much-needed color in that part of the garden.

Side note: The Chicago Botanic Garden did a plant evaluation of hardy amsonias. These are amazing resources so I always look for them when deciding what to plant.

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The second plant is Calamintha nepeta 'Montrose White'. Again, it's not a new plant, but was one I wasn't familiar with until last year when I attended a talk by designer Carrie Hennessy from Johnson's Nursery. It was named by Mike Yanny (who is responsible for developing some amazing trees and shrubs), whose wife got it from Montrose Nursery and saw how it thrived. It's deer resistant, doesn't flop, gets no more than 18 inches tall, and is said to bloom from June through frost. It's also sterile and is said to root incredibly easy from cuttings. What more can you ask for in a perennial? I've said it before and it still holds true: The bones of a practical garden need to be no-nonsense plants. That doesn't mean you can't have divas, but they can't all need coddling.

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And lastly, I think I'm going to put in some Hydrangea serrata Tiny Tuff Stuff. I was excited when this plant was introduced last year (or maybe the year before) and everything I've read about it seems positive. I felt like the amsonia and calamintha really needed something with a coarser texture in order to show off their finer texture attributes, and this hydrangea, which is small in stature, still has nice big, thick leaves.

This won't be it, of course. I'll need some taller elements and maybe something a bit spiky or strappier. I think Verbena bonariensis would look great dotted amongst them, and perhaps some  'Howard David' dahlias would work.  But these three will be the foundation for that area, one I'm comfortable with for their numerous traits and low-maintenance nature.

What's most important to you when it comes to choosing new plants to add to your garden?

NEW YEAR, NEW PLANTS

Every year I have the good fortune of growing several new plants, some provided for me to trial and others that I seek out and purchase because I NEED them. Since the garden is finally filling out, I thought it would be a good time to show you some of the interesting new plants I'm growing this year.

It's always funny to me how a plant can sneak up on you. When I unpacked Bidens 'Campfire' from my box of Proven Winners trial plants I was underwhelmed. I grew Bidens 'Goldilocks Rocks' several years ago and it wasn't my favorite, but I admit to being a bit turned off by really gold-color yellow flowers sometimes. The flowers on 'Campfire' are a red-orange mix (far more orange than they are coming off in this photo) and I love them with the combination of the dark-foliage dahlias ('David Howard'). Bidens has a great, sort of floppy nature with very thin stems that make is look sort of ethereal. I have to say, so far I like this plant enough to seek it out every year for the border. (It should be available in nurseries next year.)

I'm a big fan of mandevillas, so when Big Bad Flower sent me a new garden mandevilla that only grows to 12 to 18 inches, I was intrigued. Sun Parasol Garden Crimson mandevilla has what I consider to be perfectly red flowers. They are neither blueish, nor orangeish and not at all pink. They are true, bold, beautiful red. I combined it in a pot with dwarf sweet peas that I grew from seed (another first-time plant for me that I will definitely be growing again). Right now I think the sweet peas are winning a little, so I need to thin them a touch to make more room for the mandevilla, but all in all I love the combination.

I doubt this rose is very new, but it's new to me and I'm in love. Last year I swore off roses because I was so sick of all the problems with them. Well, sawfly larvae got them again this, but I was able to manage the population so there is still some foliage left, and last week I was rewarded with my first bloom from 'Autumn Sunset' climbing rose. It's a peachy yellow that fades to very light yellow, and much peachier, but what I love the most is the absolutely heavenly scent. This is what I've been waiting for in a rose. I pray to all the gardening gods that I can make this climber take off because I'm so in love with it I desperately want it to take over the front of the house.

I don't think you can really tell from the photo, but 'Silver Hearts' brunnera is truly silver. I'm not kidding and I didn't even think such a thing was possible, but it is shiny, metallic silver. The leaves are quite large and substantial, too, so if this makes it through a few winters I think this could be an absolute star in the shade garden.

Proven Winners comes up with new Superbells every year, and this year they sent me 'Holy Moly,' a hot pink and yellow combo. I'll be honest here, striped flowers aren't my favorite, but as you can see it is growing great and looks bright and cheerful along with Sunsatia Nemesia on the front steps.

Tuff Stuff hydrangea, sent to me by Proven Winners, doesn't look like much now, but it is growing really well and looks really healthy. There's a lot riding on this hydrangea, which I love the photos of, but like most northern gardeners, I'm skeptical of the bud hardiness on it because it blooms on old wood and I've been down that road and burned before. Tuff Stuff was bred to have much better stem and bud hardiness so time will tell. This one will get to 24 to 36 inches tall, but it has a baby brother (this is a male hydrangea, in my estimation) that gets to half that size. If this guy does well, I will seriously consider adding several Tiny Tuff Stuff hydrangeas to the front of the border.

What's new in your garden this summer?

What do to with your plants after you get them home

Poor little plants go through so much in their lives. They are coddled and grown in the cozy confines of a greenhouse where they get the perfect amount of light and water. And them BAM! they are are thrown into garden or a container and left to the whims of the weather and the gardener.

Most plants can handle a good amount of stress until they give up the ghost, but they'll never flourish to their full potential if they are stressed. Annuals, in particular, will seem to freeze in the state in which you buy them (or even decline) during periods of stress.

There are things you can do to help your plants through that transition, decreasing their stress and making sure that they get on with the growing as soon as possible.

If you are shopping for perennials and they were already outside at the nursery, you don't have to do anything special for them. You can plant them as soon as you get home, but the best days for planting are overcast (and if there is some rain in the forecast for later that's even better). A hot, sunny day is not the best for planting.

Annuals are almost always grown in greenhouses so they will be very unhappy if they are immediately thrown in the garden to fend for themselves. They need a few days to acclimate to being out of the cozy greenhouse before they are thrown in the garden or a pot to essentially fend for themselves. This is called "hardening off" plants and it is the single best thing you can do to ensure that you get the most out of your precious plants.

There are a few ways to harden off plants and a lot depends on the weather when you're doing it. If cold is a problem (and I would say it is if nights are dipping into the low 50s or below), you're probably going to want to move them into a garage at night and then pull them back out during the day. In a pinch you can also cover them at night with an old quilt or maybe several layers of burlap, but you'll want to construct some kind of makeshift framework so the covering isn't laying directly on your plants and crushing them.

During the day, the last place you want your new plants is in the blazing sun, even if they are plants that thrive in full sun. It's quite bright outside, even in the shade, so start them in a shady spot. You can gradually move them into the sun. If you have no choice but to leave them in a spot that is shady part of the day and sunny at others, you can buy some shade cloth or row cover at any garden store or most hardware stores. This is white plasticy "fabric" that comes on a roll that has little perforations in it. You can cut a piece and just drape it over your plants (make sure it doesn't blow away). It is light enough that it won't damage them unless it rains on top of it.

Speaking of rain, it goes without saying that it's really important to keep your plants watered during the hardening off period. That doesn't mean soaking wet ... just damp. Don't let them dry out in between waterings, especially if you have a flat of small plants. Those can be nearly impossible to rehydrate.

Because I have so many plants (I buy annuals as I see them once I know what I need and keep them for up to three weeks before I plant them) to manage, I bought a mini greenhouse a few years ago. I got it at a local garden store for about $35. It's just a set of shelves with a plastic tent, basically, but it acts as a less insulated greenhouse for all my annuals. I can vent the zipper as much as I want and close it completely at night to keep the heat accumulated during the day in. I have it in a relatively shady but bright spot outside the garage. I also employ the garden wagon for whatever doesn't fit in the greenhouse.

My hardening-off greenhouse filled to capacity.

Other plants, mostly perennials, go in a garden cart that I can easily move in and out of the garage when it is cold.

The trick with hardening off is to gradually expose your plants to the conditions they will be living in. You can probably accomplish this in a week, but if you don't have that much time, even a few days will help.

A close up of just how jam packed the green house is. In case you're wondering the pretty red flower is Proven Winners Superbells Pomegranate Punch and the light pink below it is Supertunia Flamingo, both of which are 2014 introductions for PW that you should be able to find in nurseries next year. I'm loving the Pomegranate Punch!

You might be thinking, "I buy plants and stick in the ground an hour later and nothing bad has happened." That's probably true. But I bet your plants didn't do much growing for awhile and you might have even had a few crispy leaves. In other words, they survived but did they thrive?

So, yes, you CAN plant annuals (ones that are purchased, not ones you've grown from seed, which will most certainly croak if you don't harden them off first) without hardening them off and yes, I've done it a few times myself. But for the next two weeks, when those plants seems completely frozen in time at best and pathetic looking at worst, I kick myself when I think that if I had just waited a few days to properly harden them off before I planted them, they'd be looking a heck of a lot better.

I'm always happy to provide an example of what NOT to do and here it is. These are plants I picked up over the past couple days that didn't make it past the patio, which is blazing, hot sun most of the day. After I took this photo I did dutifully move them to a more appropriate holding area to harden off until I plant them.

OK, that's just gross

Don't read this post while you're eating. Unless you are dieting and want a reason to stop eating.

I have sad news to report on the health of the Family Jewels plant. The aphids love it. I have never actually seen a plant so covered in aphids before in my life. From a distance I thought the stems were turning a pretty golden color. And then I got closer and saw this:

That just skeeves me out, although I'd rather deal with aphids than creepy caterpillar-type bugs. Even though this was clearly a massive infestation, I did try my usual remedies. First I hit it really good with a strong blast of the hose. That probably got 75% of them off, but it was really time consuming and wet because I had to hold each stem individually to get on the underside. I waited a couple days and repeated the big rinse cycle, then went through with a rag and a bowl of water and dish soap and manually removed most of the rest of them.

Three days later it was almost as bad. It's OK, really. The plant probably got stressed, making it more susceptible to an alien aphid attack. After all, it's not used to the kind of climate I have it growing in and it has endured one of the worst summers (if you're a plant, awesome if you're a lover of beautiful weather like me) we've ever had. With the weather turning much colder than it usually is this time of year, it's not long for this world anyway. So I'll pull off the seed pods in hopes of saving some seed and then pull it out of the ground. I would have liked to enjoy it a bit longer, but I've certainly gotten plenty of enjoyment from it already this season.

PG-13 plant touching

The plant feeler-upper strikes again.

Look how big the family jewels are getting!

You might recall my PG-13 plant touching moment from last year:

P.S. I'm not totally sick, I swear. I'm just a toucher. I touch everything. It's a good thing I discovered Internet shopping because store employees would get irritated with me for touching, rubbing, feeling and inspecting every item of clothing on a rack. Plus, I like to think that plants want a little petting every once in a while too.

Taking care of the family jewels

 I'm a big proponent of gardening being fun. That's why I feel that gardening "rules" should be thought of more as guidelines. My gardening rule is: Do what makes you happy.

As part of embracing that philosophy, this spring I bought a plant for no reason other than that I thought it was funny. I actually first saw this plant in New Zealand and I've been searching for it ever since. It's Asclepias physocarpa but its common name—Family Jewels tree (aka Hairy Balls plant, or the far more boring Balloonplant) says far more about what this member of the milkweed family actually looks like.

It's a tender perennial in zone 7, so it is most certainly an annual in my zone 5b garden, but I wanted to give it a shot anyway. It first started flowering a couple weeks ago so I was worried that I wouldn't get to see any of the seed pods that give it its common names. Never fear, the family jewels are here.

It's OK, you can giggle. You know you want to.

There are several seed pods now and they are growing rather rapidly (obviously I'm not watering it with cold water ;) ) but I'm really enjoying this plant for its form as well. It has an elongated leaf that isn't unlike what you'd find on an olive tree. I absolutely love olive trees because I think they are just so pretty. I hate olives though. Go figure. Anyway, it's difficult to find an elongated, slightly blueish leaf on a plant that will grow in northern climates so this was a nice surprise.

The flowers are diminutive but pretty with a lovely light scent.

The plant stands about 5 feet 6 inches tall and has a sort of free-form habit. I like it.

I'm going to try to save a few of the seeds and grow this from seed next year. Any plant that makes me laugh every time I see it is certainly one worth growing. Even if it means that you have a rather juvenile sense of humor.

P.S. I think I should receive some sort of award for keeps the puns to a minimum in this post. Feel free to add as many as you like in the comments though. If you have the cojones.

Plants of the year: Honorable (and dishonorable) mentions

Last week I wrote about my favorite new plants of the summer. Here are a few that earned honorable mentions a couple that were just plain disappointments.

Raspberry Blast with Gold Dust and Snow Princess on the front steps.

Narrowly missing the "best of" list was Petunia Raspberry Blast. I never really liked this petunia much in the past. It just came across as a bit gaudy to me. And then last year I saw it used in one of the street containers downtown in the town where I work. As I drove through town all of the containers looked nice, but only the container with Raspberry Blast consistently caught my eye.

I grew it this year on the front steps and I do think it was the right pop of color for that area. It also required very little maintenance other than the usual and a haircut about mid-summer.

As Tim Gunn would say, it's "a lot of look" but in the right place, I think Raspberry Blast is pretty great.

Superbells White looked good when I first planted the window box (top) and it looked good weeks later too (bottom).

Another honorable mention goes to a pretty ordinary flower: Superbells White. It has a light yellow center that brightens it up. It was in the center of my window box and it just kept on blooming all summer. More and more I'm liking calibrachoas much more than petunias.



Now's the time we get to a couple of disappointments. These were two of the most hyped Proven Winners winners plants of the year, so perhaps what we're dealing with is too much build-up. Like prom, sometimes the real deal just can't live up to the expectation. Really, these plants were promoted so much you would think that they would deadhead the rest of the plants, and water and fertilize the garden for you. And fight off weeds.

Snow Princess looked pretty sometimes, but she was a real diva and if you ignored her for a day, she pouted and generally threw a plant hissy fit.

The first disappointment was Lobularia Snow Princess. Yes, it's a million times better than the Lobularias of the past, so in that aspect, it was a winner. But go one day without water, and Snow Princess looking like Frosty the Snowman after he gets locked in the greenhouse. I know most containers really do like to be watered every day in the middle of summer, but most of them can go a day or two without looking positively pathetic. Snow Princess is, like her name, just a little too high maintenance for me.

This was taken the day I planted this container and this about the best Pretty Much Picasso looked all summer.

And the biggest disappointment of the summer: the highly touted Supertunia Pretty Much Picasso. I think this flower looks great in the promo material, when you're looking at just the flower on a white background. Unfortunately, that's not how we see our plants. We see them with stems and leaves and not always perfectly lit.

The beauty of Pretty Much Picasso is in it's green rim on the flowers, but as it turns out, it's almost impossible to see that green rim (which is more of a Kelly green than a chartreuse) when it's actually planted, unless you are on top of it. I also didn't find it to flourish well. It just never filled out very nicely. Of course, that could be entirely gardener error, but if I made that mistake with PMP, then I'm sure I've made it with other flowers that have handled it anyway.

And the last problem with PMP, is that it just doesn't go with much. Because the beauty is in the edges, you want to highlight those and not bring in a ton of other colors to fight with it in the same containers. I saw nurseries that mixed it with peach colors in containers (not my favorite), and a lot of Snow Princess and PMP in hanging baskets (disappointment in a basket?), and none of them looked particularly stunning to my eye.

So I'm sorry to say, PMP, I don't think you're going to make the cut next year. That's OK, there's a newbie on the way next year ... and I think he'll fill your shoes, and then some, just fine.

Christmas in May

Few days are so bad that coming home to find this sitting on your porch doesn't make you forget all your troubles:

And the only thing more fun than tearing into that box, is tearing into that box when you have no idea what's inside. I'm participating in the Proven Winners garden writers plant trials, so the nice folks over at Proven Winners sent me a box of plants to try out and report back to them about later in the summer. Some of them, like the three Pretty Much Picasso petunias, are widely available at garden centers, but most of them are not due to be released until next year. It was quite a selection!

 

There are a couple that I'm particularly excited about, and I'll keep you updated on their progress as the summer progresses.

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