New Plants for 2003

WELCOME to the re-launch of my gardening newsletter. I’m excited to be back and from many of the notes you guys sent, you’re happy about it as well. Thanks for all the encouraging words! The Net has been a funny place to figure out how to run newsletters lately (as some of you might remember from the gardenbrew.com mess) but I think I’ve got it figured out and a system in place to let me keep doing this for some time. More later on this. Just note I'm working on the newsletter production "system" and you'll see some changes in the look and feel of the newsletter as I learn how to use the mailing features of this new software.

There are also a few new folks to the newsletter and I’d like to welcome them as well. It is always good to have new people around to keep me sharp.

I’m still working for Heritage Perennials (a friend said that was like letting the fox guard the chicken coop) :-) in sales. (Canada’s largest perennial flower nursery) And yes, you should see some of the really neat plants I’ve managed to liberate from the nursery trial areas. :-) It’s a tough job but somebody has to do all this testing and reporting to other readers about these plants. ;-)

So – what’s the newsletter going to look like in this new reincarnation?

Good question. Because I’m working full time and trying to garden and have a life and sail and …. (You get the picture) I can’t even begin to answer all the questions I know you have. I think what I’ll try to do is answer one or maybe two questions in each newsletter and put an article up each issue as well. That will give you something new to look for as well as some information in a bit more depth each issue.

So, feel free to send in questions but know that even if I want to, I can’t possibly answer them all and have my own garden too. I’ll answer the ones I think will be of the most interest to the most readers or are the most timely. I’ll save them all in a file though so eventually I’ll either write an article around the problem (if it’s a big one) or answer it on the website. (I know each question is really important to the person asking it) :-)

I’m going to try to send out an issue every second week or so. Weekly issues are a bit of a problem given the amount of traveling I do to other nurseries and garden centres and gardens. Again, a tough thing for a gardener to have to do but somebody has to spread the word about all these great plants.

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Speaking of traveling – I’m giving talks at MacDonalds Garden Centre in Virginia Beach on Feb 7-9 if any of you are in that area.

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One of the advantages of being in the horticultural business is that every now and then you get to go to visit some really super gardening shows. This past week I was in Baltimore attending the Mid-Atlantic Trade Show and it turns out it is one of the largest gardening shows in the United States. I got some new plants to bring home and discovered even more new ones that I’m going to get this spring. I also found a new kind of fountain that you might find interesting.

The plant that I’m most excited about is one that will not be available in garden centers until spring 2004 but I have a small cutting sitting in on my kitchen windowsill right now. If I could insert a huge smiley face at this point, I would. The plant is Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Bailmer’ being marketed as Endless Summer, a new standard in hydrangeas. Normally, Hydrangea macrophylla bloom on old wood and the buds are not reliably winter hardy in my zone 4 garden; the leaves are fine but the blue flowers never appear from the dead buds. Endless summer blooms on both old and new wood in its first year in the garden so if a hard winter kills the old buds, I still get flowers from the new ones produced this coming spring. Mind you, the plant was discovered in Minnesota in a similar zone 4 garden so it looks like I’ll get both the old and new blooms.

Why does this excite me? Because in acidic soils, the blooms will be blue. In alkaline soils, they will revert to pink but with copious additions of peat moss and sulphur, mine will be blue this summer. It should produce huge numbers of blooms on its 5 foot height and spread and each of these blooms will be approximately eight inches long. Can’t you tell I’m excited?

I also discovered several exciting developments in ponds and fountains. Manufacturers are now producing fiberglass fountains and water features that have copper or iron impregnated into the fiberglass. This means the fountain or water feature develop a green or rusty patina making them look exactly like the real metal thing. I coveted the larger fountains at this show but they are a bit out of my price range. The wall-mounted water features were however quite reasonably priced. Look for them in better garden centers this coming spring.

Another thing you can look for this coming spring at better garden centers is the brand new Echinacea ‘Razzmatazz’. This is a bright pink, fully double coneflower that is truly a wonderful plant. I’ve already arranged to get one for my garden and I hope you have similar luck. While I do enjoy the coneflowers for their long bloom time and hardiness, a fully double blossom is really showy. The purists will sniff of course; double flowers being “unnatural” but hey, it looks pretty good to me.

The newest plant that I’m really having fun with is the Phormiums and there were several new ones at Baltimore. While these are hardy only in the most southerly of gardens, they make wonderful centerpieces for containers with their bronze foliage or even their variegated bronze and gold foliage. I overwinter mine in containers in the house as houseplants. The new ones coming along include ‘Yellow Wave’ with wide lime-green waves streaked with darker greens and ‘Rubrum’, a darker bronze-red leaved version that makes a delightful container plant.

I also saw some Scabiosa atropurpurea ‘Ace of Spades’ last summer and I know it will be on the market this year. The flowers on this scabiosa are maroon-black and are held on a bushy, upright leaves. It is a tender perennial so I don’t think I can overwinter it but it will be in local garden centres next spring so you can try to overwinter it right along with me. This is an excellent addition to the award-winning Scabiosa ‘Butterfly Blue’ that blooms non-stop all summer.

Polemonium ‘Snow and Sapphire’ is a new variegated (green and white leaf) plant with typical blue flowers that will make its appearance at local nurseries this spring. It is reputed to not disappear in the heat and humidity of our typical summer but I’ll believe that when I see it happen. It is a gorgeous plant though and one of the booths had a huge display of them. I was tempted to bring a few home with me but they’ll be easily available next spring.

One that I wished I could have brought home was a new lavender called ‘Walburton’s Silver Edge’. This lavender will indeed join my collection next spring because it has grayish leaves and a wide creamy edge on each fragrant leaf. I visited that booth several times just to check it out with a surreptitious fondling to release the fragrance. It will be available through better garden centers next spring. I’ll use it to replace the tender ‘Goodwin Creek Grey’ that seems to have passed away after only one freezing.

There are far too many new plants and things to delight the average gardener coming our way next spring. These are only a few things you can expect to see. I hope you have better luck resisting this stuff than I will.

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So – I’m glad to be back and I hope you’ll tell your friends about the site and newsletter. The more the merrier. :-)

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The Last Word

“If we free our minds from the incubus of those usual teachings and practices, many beautiful things may be done with roses for garden adornment.”

William Robinson, English Flower Garden. 9th ed. 1905