New plants promise gardens awash in color
This year there are so many beautiful options to choose from, ranging from bright-colored perennials to small-scale trees
Not too long ago the snow was falling, the wind was howling and the temperatures plummeting. As I write this story, it’s still chilly outside and there is still a bit of snow clinging to some of my garden beds. Spring has sprung, but it’s hard to believe. But I’m hoping that soon — really soon — plants in my garden and yours will spring into action and we’ll all be enthusiastically planning what new plants we can put in our garden beds or in pots on our patios or porches.
And this year there are so many beautiful new options to choose from, ranging from bright-colored perennials to small-scale trees.
Christa Steenwyk, creative marketing director at Walters Gardens, said her firm introduced 100 new perennials to garden centers in 2016 for the 2017 growing season. As in past years, the goal has been to introduce the most unusual new flowers possible.
“People are looking for what’s new, plants that have long season interest, are lowmaintenance, disease-resistant and long-blooming,” she said. “We only introduce the best of the best. We have set the bar high and we continue to work on our breeding goals.”
Walters Gardens is a wholesale grower in Zeeland, Mich. The grower doesn’t provide plants directly to the public; however, the firm’s website shows where its plants are available.
Steenwyk, an avid gardener, said although she had an abundance of new plants to choose from when they became available at her firm last year, her favorites were those in the heuchera family.
“Heucheras (also called coral bells) are trendy and have been trendy for a long time,” she said. “People love them because they can go in sun or shade, are easy to grow, they always look good and they are versatile.
“Before, heucheras didn’t have awesome foliage and flower colors. Maybe they had one or the other. These are the total package . ... These plants have flowers that are of equal height to the plant and they perfectly top the plant like candles on a birthday cake.”
Steenwyk said that if she could have just one plant in the new releases it would be a black heuchera called Black Pearl, that has light pink flowers and is part of the Primo Line.
“The line is called Primo because they are a series of landscape heucheras that are bigger, look great in a garden and are vigorous,” she said.
“There are a lot of other black heucheras on the market. But when you put them in full sun they turn chocolate brown. This plant stays black longer and has large, showy, ruffled leaves, which is what I want for design purposes.” She said leaves get 4 to 41⁄2 inches and the plant gets 8 to 10 inches high and spread 18 to 20 inches. Another plant in the Primo line she likes is Pretty Pistachio,which comes in a striking lime color. “Lime looks great when you put it in a landscape, and this plant is really vigorous,” she said. “It has big leaves and striking medium pink flowers. The lime and pink combination” is always a favorite, she said, adding that this plant grows 8 to 10 inches high and 28 to 32 inches wide.
She also loves some new heucheras in the Dolce series, which are a bit smaller.
“You can put them in a little row in front as a border or you can put them in pots and then in fall plant them in the ground so you have them for next year. … These plants have smaller leaves and are more petite, but they’re still larger than a lot of others.”
One favorite in this line is Appletini, which has lime green leaves with a silver overlay and red flowers and gets 8 to 10 inches high and 24 to 30 inches wide. Another favorite, Silver
Gumdrop,has foliage that is silver with a pink overlay. In fall, vibrant pink flowers emerge and match the pink in the foliage. This plant gets 6 to 8 inches high and spreads 20 to 24 inches.
Amy Kolden, sales development coach at Monrovia, said her firm (headquartered in Azusa, Calif.) has 27 new and exclusive varieties for 2017. Consumers order plants through the website, and they are delivered to participating garden centers in their area.
She said that if she could pick just one new plant to put in her Viroqua garden, it would be a hydrangea called
ry Shake.
“This new hydrangea comes in a compact form with sturdy stems that support big, full flower heads that start out white and mature to delicate pink,” she said. “It has long lasting blooms that can be used in fresh or dried arrangements and it can be put in containers or used as a foundation shrub in a smaller garden,” she said. The plant will grow 4 to 5 feet tall and gets 4 feet wide.
Kolden said that this plant may be her favorite, but that hydrangeas are popular with customers, too.
“They are the No. 1 searched category on our website,” she said. “People just love hydrangeas, probably because they bloom in summer, their blooms last a long time, they have attractive foliage, are compact and can grow in part sun.
“A lot of people have smaller yards or want less maintenance. They want things that don’t get out of control. They also want plants that attract wildlife,” she said.
Cape Cod Hydrangea in the Seaside Serenade series is another beauty she said gardeners will love.
“It’s a hardy, repeat bloomer with big, mop-head flowers, extradark green leaves and a neat, mounded form,” she said. “Flowers will get blue in acidic soils or pink in neutral to alkaline soils and are long-lasting. It’s perfect for foundations and borders.” She added that this variety gets 4 feet tall and wide.
Some of her other favorites are in the daylily family.
“Yellow Punch Daylily, in the EveryDayLily series, is a hardy dwarf that is a repeat-bloomer and has exotic bicolor coral-rose and creamy yellow flowers,” she said, adding this plant is an offspring of the popular Stella d’Oro but is even hardier. It’s early flowering and prolific from summer to fall, is great for borders or planted in masses but also can be put in containers. Planted in full to part sun, it will get 12 to 15 inches tall and wide, and flower stalks rise above the foliage.
Other lookers in this series that perform like Yellow Punch are Cream Daylily,which has creamy yellow flowers with ruffled edges, and Pink Wing Daylily,which has pink and cream flowers, a dark pink halo and a yellow throat.
For those who want something larger in their landscape, Kolden suggests the new Ember Waves Western Arborvitae. “A sunny yellow new growth emerges in striking contrast to maturing chartreuse to bright green foliage,” she said. “The real drama arrives when the weather cools and it transitions to deep gold, with glowing orange to russet red tips.” She added that this plant is vigorous, virtually disease-free, gets 25 feet tall and 8 feet wide and is deer-resistant.
At the even larger end of the spectrum, there’s a new Asian dogwood with dark pink blossoms called Scarlet Fire that that can grow in southern Wisconsin.
“It grows like a typical Kousa dogwood,” said Tom Molnar, a plant biologist who oversees the ornamental tree breeding program for the Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station.
“You can expect it to get 15 to 20 feet tall depending on the site you plant it in. It will probably be as wide as it is tall . ... This is the first year it’s available to the public.”
Molnar said what is so striking about this dogwood is that it has dark pink, almost fuchsia-colored flowers, a color that has not been available in the past. It is likely to flower the first week of June and is a hardier and more disease-resistant plant. It will be available online through nurseries.
There’s also a great new dwarf blackberry shrub called Baby Cakes in the Bushel and Berry Collection, which is grown by Star Roses & Plants in Westgrove, Pa.
Stacey Pierson, who does public relations for the collection — which has ornamental berry plants for gardens as well as containers — said this new release is “small and compact, is great for containers and is thornless, which is great as children can go out and pick the berries and not get pricked by thorns.”
She said depending on weather, this plant can produce a second crop of fruit in the fall. It gets 3 to 4 feet tall and is available at some major garden centers in our area, as well as through some growers online.
Leah Haugh, public relations and social media manager at Star Roses, said her firm also has five new roses this year; two of which were hybridized by Will Radler of Greenfield, who developed the world famous Knockout Series of roses.
The firm breeds plants then sells them to growers who then sell to garden centers. (See the website for a retailer near you.)
Haugh said that if she were pressed to pick just one of the new roses for her own garden it would be Radler’s Fruity Petals, which is a climbing rose that reblooms throughout the season.
“I am such a fan of Will Radler, and I love the Fruity Petals Rose because of its unique color, which would be described as coral with a yellow eye,” she said. “It’s also filled with lots of large, cuplike flowers that each have about 18 petals and it has a slight fragrance.”
The plant will grow up to 6 feet, is disease-resistant, blooms in spring and then reblooms throughout the season and has medium green foliage.
She said another great rose this year is Canyon Road,a floribunda that comes in a unique color.
“It blooms in late spring with a striking flush of brick red blooms,” she said, adding that it shows good tolerance to disease and is well-suited for use in borders for a striking pop of color. The plant produces medium, cuplike flowers that each have 45 to 50 petals, it has glossy dark green foliage and a bushy habit and grows 21⁄2 feet high and wide.
At Nature Hills Nursery, an online garden center in Omaha, Neb., new plants for 2017 range from privets to dianthus.
Jeff Dinslage, Nature Hills owner, said, “Anything new is what sells” and that these days gardeners also want “plants with lots of color, dwarf plants so they don’t have to prune them, and fruit and berry plants.”
One of his most unique new plants is Straight Talk Privet.
“Privet is considered a very old-fashioned hedging plant that needed a lot of maintenance to keep in shape,” he said. “Straight Talk is a hardy new selection that is perfect for hedging” because it gets only 2 feet wide but can eventually reach 12 feet tall. It has classic white, fragrant flowers, shiny green leaves and small black fruit. It grows in most any soil, is relatively pest-free and can be pruned to keep it shorter if desired.
Dinslage said Cherry Explosion Hydrangea is another plant gardeners should look at.
“It’s a new breakthrough when it comes to color and a game changer when it comes to hardiness in Wisconsin,” he said. It has cherry red florets that form a circle and a profusion of tiny starlike pink flowers in the center.
He said Macrophylla-type Hydrangeas don’t typically like Wisconsin winters, but this plant (if sited properly) will bloom beautifully every year on new wood or old. The perfect site is on the east side of your home or a site that gets some sun but is shaded from the hot afternoon sun.
Acidic soils can change the cherry red color to lavender, not blue. When fall comes the foliage turns a purple and burgundy mix. Plants get 3 to 4 feet high.