Go with best plants when introducing new choices
Though I love favorite old plants for my tiny, lowinput garden, every year I find a little room to plant something with new possibilities. And I depend on a network of like-minded experimenters to narrow my choices.
I start with my friend Diane Blazek, who is the executive director of AllAmerica Selections, an organization that tests new garden plants for the marketplace. The mission of AAS is to promote brand new varieties that have been tested by knowledgeable professional gardeners in botanic gardens, university trials and other public venues.
Planted side-by-side and compared with similar older, well-known varieties, the newbies are under pressure to have superior performance, insect and disease resistance, and other factors; only a handful make it to become AAS Winners.
The organization started back in the early 1930s, when garden editors were under pressure from the new garden club movement to feature new plants, yet had very few resources for reliable information. Southern nurseryman Ray Hastings of Atlanta, suggested forming an independent organization through which seed companies could cooperatively set up trial grounds across the country, accepting only new, previously unsold varieties.
The nonprofit group now has hundreds of trial gardens overseen by respected judges who are under instruction to grow
the plants like ordinary gardeners would, without a lot of horticultural fuss. The four categories of trials and awards are Flower, Bedding Plant, Vegetable and Cool Season Bedding Plant. Herbs are included with vegetables.
I’ve come to depend on many of the AAS in- troductions. Just a few I have grown myself — and no doubt you have, too — i nclude Sugar Snap peas, Majestic Giant pansies, Celebrity tomato, Red Sails lettuce, Burgundy okra, Purple Ruff les basil, Indian Summer Rudbeckia, Purple Wave petunia, Bright Lights Swiss chard, Giant Marconi sweet pepper, Black Pearl pepper, and several of the Pro- fusion zinnias. One of the new ones being introduced this year is a compact, meaty seedless watermelon (don’t get me started on how they come up with seeds for seedless melons).
You can find the others, with photos and growing instructions, at All-AmericaSelections.org. Though the first year many of them are grown by wholesale growers who supply local garden centers with plants, the new award winners are readily available through online or other mail order sources.
Look for the red, white and blue AAS logo at your garden center or seed catalog, and let’s try something new this year.