New Plants
Click on the link to the right to view the complete new plant list for 2011. Here are some that we look forward to seeing:
Hostas
We have over 40 new hostas this year. Once a hostaholic, always a hostaholic. Last year's Hosta of the Year, the excellent ‘First Frost', has sported an even showier version called ‘Autumn Frost' ($18.00). It has the same frosty blue color, but with extra wide yellow margins that lighten to creamy white later in the season. Another good medium sized hosta is ‘Georgia Sweetheart' ($18.00), a showy sport of ‘American Sweetheart'. The centers of the foliage on ‘Georgia Sweetheart' start gold and turn to cream, with beautifully contrasting, dark green margins. Also of medium size is ‘Temptation' ($20.00), a stunning, white centered sport of ‘Elegans', with blue margins.
People are always looking for big blue hostas. Many already have a ‘Blue Angel', and they are looking for something new. We have two new, large blue ones for you this year. ‘Yankee Blue' ($15.00) is a large, vigorous blue hosta, forming a full, symmetrical, wide mound of elongated, wedge-shaped leaves. Its waxy coating holds the blue coloring well into the season. Even larger is ‘Millenium' ($18.00), a monster of a mound of rounded, dark blue leaves.
Our other new extra-large hosta is ‘Devil's Advocate' ($25.00), a huge sport of ‘Blue Angel'. It is a somewhat subtly variegated hosta that is blue, with green margins that lighten to apple green. Like its parent, it has heavy substance and is a great grower.
New small hostas include ‘Curly Fries' ($25.00), a most unusual hosta with very wavy, heavily substanced, narrow, yellow leaves, giving it a spidery appearance. And be sure to check out ‘Lakeside Paisley Print' ($18.00), a stunning small hosta with wide, wavy green margins and narrow, creamy white markings in the center, which shoot out in a feathery pattern. This, also, is a small hosta with good substance.
There are several good, new gold hostas, including ‘City Lights' ($18.00), a large hosta with brilliant gold color; ‘Bumblebee' ($18.00), a medium-large beauty of rich gold, heavily corrugated foliage; ‘Sun Shower' ($25.00), the eye-catching centerpiece of Bob Solberg's Longiana program; and ‘Herbal Tea' ($15.00), a nicely cupped, bright gold hosta.
Daylilies
‘Super Honor' (Dove 1986) has very large, purple flowers that are very fragrant and nicely ruffled, along with a pronounced lemon-lime throat. Three new daylilies are touted as being everblooming or reblooming. ‘Apricot Sparkles' is an everblooming dwarf variety that blooms very early and reblooms until frost, with deep apricot, ruffled flowers. ‘Earlybird Cardinal' (Apps) is a watermelon red with piecrust edges that blooms early and reblooms until frost. ‘Wild and Wonderful' (Stamile 2002) has very large, spider blooms that are salmon pink with a red chevron, and is said to rebloom.
We also went up to Bob Ellison's place last summer and loaded up our large van with a bunch of clumps of new varieties, some of which are Bob's hybrids, and several of some other well-known hybridizers. We have lined them out in the field. Most will probably not be in great enough supply to start selling this year, but you might want to walk the field this summer to see some of the new stuff coming down the pipe.
Perennials
Again this year, we will have around 75 new perennials. We are quite excited to have found a couple of sources of Martagon Lilies. Customers are always asking about the beautiful clump that we have growing out near the parking lot. We acquired that several years ago from a tissue culture lab. The plants were quite small, and took around three years to grow into a mature clump. Because of that time lag, the lab quit producing them, and we sold off all that we had. But now we have found some mature bulbs, which we potted up last fall. They are not cheap, at $29.99, but they are very hardy and form a good sized clump as they mature and multiply. Martagon Lilies have recurved blooms that dangle on tall stems. They do best in some part shade, and make wonderful, contrasting additions to shade gardens featuring large hosta clumps. We have an unnamed purple variety and a white variety (‘Album'), both of which may get up to 5' tall, and a maroon variety called ‘Cabernet', which is said to get around 3' tall. These are sure to be real conversation pieces in your gardens.
Amsonia hubrictii is the 2011 Perennial of the Year, but you might want to also look at Amsonia ‘Blue Ice', which is a more compact version of Blue Star, at 12-16 inches. There is also a more compact version of Baptisia, last year's Perennial of the Year, called ‘Starlite Prairieblues', standing 3' tall, sporting periwinkle blue with butter cream keels.
Echinaceas continue to be hot, and we have eleven new varieties! I won't bother to list them all here, but, needless to say, there are several in the orange, peach and yellow color ranges. Check out the complete New Plants list for descriptions.
Hybridizers of Helleborus have been very busy the past few years. New varieties just keep coming out. Better known as Lenten Rose, this group of plants is among the first to bloom in the spring in the shade garden. All of the four new ones that we have this year grow 18-22” tall and are hardy to Zone 4. The names ‘Grape Galaxy', ‘Ice Follies', ‘Pink Parachutes' and ‘Red Racer' pretty well tell you the colors of the flowers on each.
A new variety of the old fashioned Bleeding Heart, Dicentra spectabilis ‘Valentine', is described as being really red, rather than the rosy pink of the standard variety. Likewise, a new Fernleaf Bleeding Heart, Dicentra ‘Burning Hearts' is touted as having valentine red, heart shaped flowers.
Trees and Shrubs
There is a lot of excitement about the pink forms of Hydrangea arborescens. Described as the pink forms of the well-known, white-flowered ‘Annabelle', both ‘Incredibelle Spirit' and ‘Bella Anna' are receiving quite a bit of press in gardening magazines, articles, and advertisement. Those in the know seem to favor ‘Bella Anna', the hybrid from Michael Dirr, generally considered to be the expert in the country on trees and shrubs. It is hitting the market a year later than ‘Invincibelle Spirit', but is considered to have better pink color. We'll have some in for Mother's Day weekend, and will get a larger shipment in around the first of June.
Another new hydrangea is Hydrangea paniculata ‘Great Star', a unique and unusual variety from France. Its white, wavy, star-shaped florets start blooming in mid-summer and continue until frost. It grows up to 6' tall and is hardy to Zone 4.
A couple of new, very hardy shrubs for sun sound interesting. Physocarpus opulifolius ‘Little Devil' is a smaller form of burgundy-foliaged Ninebark, growing 3-4' tall, with pinkish white flowers in June and interesting, exfoliating bark in winter. Spirea x vanhouttei ‘Firegold' is a variety of Bridal Wreath from Quebec with the same white flowers, but with bright lemon-lime foliage.
If you are looking for a yellow evergreen to brighten up the landscape, check out three new forms of Arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis) that we will have on hand this year. ‘Fire Chief' has reddish new growth which turns yellow. ‘Rheingold' has intense, orange-yellow color in spring and summer, turning copper-orange in winter, and takes well to regular shearing. Both grow 3-5' tall. ‘Yellow Ribbon' is a taller, narrow variety with yellow new growth in spring, growing 5-10' tall and 2-3' wide.
Dragon's Eye Pine (Pinus densiflora ‘Oculis-draconis') is a tree that is green in spring, but explodes into gorgeous variegation in the middle of summer and holds the variegation well into winter. The variegation seems to intensify as the tree ages. One that we planted around four years ago has always been nice as it variegated, but was absolutely stunning last year. Everyone wanted to know what that tree up on the corner was. We have 10 nice B&B Dragon's Eye Pines coming in this year. It's not on our new plants list because we have carried it in the past, but always in a smaller size. These B&B trees should be outstanding.
We're trying out a handful of new Japanese Maples (Acer palmatum) this year. For more in the way of descriptions, see our list, but if names like ‘Orange Dream', ‘Rhode Island Red', and ‘Sango Kaku' sound interesting to you, get here early because supplies are very limited. Our trees and shrubs will be coming in during the week of April 10.
