Archive for the ‘New Garden Plants’ Category

Sunrise Coneflower - stunning yellow blooms pair well with blue flowering Perovskia

It’s hard to top Coneflowers as an easy to grow drought proof plant. Echinacea or Coneflower is available in an ever growing palette of color with long lasting blooms.  They are easy to grow in the perennial garden providing an often needed late summer color and of course, they are just loved by butterflies!

We recently teamed up with Stacy Tornio from Birds & Blooms Magazine . Stacy provides insights on selecting the best Coneflowers for your backyard.

Read article:   Top 10 Coneflowers

Marmalade Coneflower grows up to 30" tall and combines well with Ornamental Grasses, Butterfly Bush and so much more!

Coneflowers are one of the best garden plants.  They tolerate heat, wind, humidity, drought, clay soil, and some shade and come in an array of colors, heights, flower forms. It is really difficult to choose because they are so beautiful.   (ok – I’ll  take three of each just because I can’t make up my mind).

Echinacea Marmalade really caught my attention this past year.  It’s no wonder since it’s from breeder Arie Bloom (Plants Nouveau). Arie has been bringing  us so many amazing, mostly double flowering coneflowers such as Hot Papaya, Pink Double Delight, Coconut Lime, and Marmalade to name a few.

There are a few things I noticed about Marmalade Coneflower this past year and why it is such a  jammin great plant.

1 – Double the Color=Double the Fragrance

Beautifully formed 4” flowers each containing 150 vibrant orange petals. Blooms will range from a oh-so-pretty deep

150 FRAGRANT petals that make great cut flower bouquets

orange to a peachy buff color.  Double flowering forms means double the fragrance in your garden!  Plus Coneflowers make for a great cut flower!

2 – Longest Coneflower to Bloom

Marmalade was in full bloom in Mid-June.  In Michigan, Coneflowers don’t even start blooming in July and still in full bloom in September with any cutting back or deadheading!

3 – Lax Attitude

Coneflowers can vary in habit from upright to varying degrees of lax, more open habit.  The later, like Marmalade makes for a fuller plant while providing cozy company when nestled in between two taller plants  (such as Butterfly Bush and Pennisetum Karley Rose).

4 – Lasting Color

Deep orange blooms ages to a long lasting buff color.  Other coneflowers turn black immediately after the flower fades,

Marmalade has transitioned to a soft, buff color and still going strong in late September in Michigan

but not Marmalade. This coneflower will give you long lasting garden performance late in the season before turning dark.

5 – Highest Coneflower Rating

Every year, Great Garden Plants donate new plants to Chicago Botanical Gardens for their Plant Trials.   We were very pleased to hear from Richard Hawke, Plant Evaluation Manager that amidst hundreds of Coneflowers in their evaluation, this was his favorite Coneflower in 2011 for exceptional display and performance.

Add this charming Coneflower to your perennial garden this year, if you haven’t done so already.

Where to Buy Echinacea Marmalade

Tips on Growing Coneflowers

Earliest blooming Hellebore!

I never thought I’d live to see the day that we were able to grow a true PINK flowered Christmas Rose (Helleborus niger), but famed English hybridizer David Tristram has finally accomplished his goal!

After many years of careful hand-crossing Helleborus niger with Helleborus x hybridus, David was finally successful in creating a true inter-specific cross.

It was originally thought that these two different species would never cross with each other, however Mr. Tristram has proved this theory wrong.

Vast flower colors of Helleborus x hybridus

As you can see from the picture on the right, Helleborus x hybridus comes in a wide variety of flower colors, shapes, and sizes. Whereas the Christmas Rose, Helleborus niger is a pristine, clear white in color.

Walberton’s Rosemary Hellebore is a superb hybrid between these two that now gives gardeners the “Best of Both Worlds”! We get the rich pink flower color from the xhybridus parent and the 3 month earlier bloom time from the niger parent.

Deer proof shade plant Walberton's Rosemary Hellebore

We’ve just finished Halloween here in western Michigan and our plants of Walberton’s Rosemary are coming into full bloom! WOW! I’ve never seen another Hellebore bloom this early in the year.

As you can see from the picture on the left, the hybridization process has also produced a plant with superb vigor! Christmas roses can be a bit tricky to grow in the home garden, but when Mr. Tristram crossed it with the vigorous x hybridus, he greatly improved its garden vigor.

Tremendous flower power of Walberton's Rosemary Hellebore

As you can see from the image on the right, this new hybrid has tremendous flower power! I shot this picture at Skagit Gardens before this plant had been released several years ago. I was simply amazed at the huge number of blooms on these 2 gallon specimen containers!

Congratulations to Mr David Tristram for all his years of dedicated hard work! His new Walberton’s Rosemary Hellebore brings another new realm of great garden possibilities to our favorite and Colorful Deer Proof Shade Hellebores!

Reblooming Invincibelle Spirit Hydrangea

This breeding breakthrough is one of the most exciting new Flowering Shrubs of the past decade! It’s a PINK flowering form of America’s favorite Annabelle Hydrangea.  Rare, pink-flowering Invincibelle Spirit Hydrangea boasts giant 8-10″ flowers of bright pink that will color your garden for over 4 months!

For decades, the giant white flowered globes of Annabelle Hydrangea were the only Hydrangea that would reliably bloom in the coldest regions of the country. However, Invincibelle Spirit Hydrangea has changed the landscape with her bright pink flowers that thrive in the coldest Zone 3 gardens!

White blooms on Annabelle Hydrangea, Hardy in Zone 3

It took nearly 10 years for hybridizer Dr. Tom Ranney to successfully produce this pink-flowered form of Annabelle and we consider this one of the most exciting breeding breakthroughs in Hydrangeas of the past decade!

Invincibelle Spirit Hydrangea lends itself to a multitude of uses in today’s home garden including magnificent large pot specimens on the patio as shown in the above photo. She also makes a wonderful long-blooming Hedge Plant as shown in the picture below. What other hedges will grow quickly and give you over 4 months of flowers…which make long-lasting cut-flower bouqets!

Invincibelle Spirit Hydrangea used as a Long-Blooming Flowering Hedge

Each stem produces a large flower measuring 8-10″ across and a dark pink in color. Cooler temperatures seem to intensify & darken the pink coloration. As the main flower emerges, other flowers begin appearing up & down the stem, thus prolonging the flower show for up to 4 months!

And we saved the best part for last! Dr. Ranney has teamed up with Proven Winners to launch this plant with a special goal of raising $1 MILLION dollars to be donated to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation to help in the fight against this dreaded disease! One dollar for every plant sold will be donated!

Our hats (and garden gloves) off to our good friend Tom Ranney and we wish him much success with this new Great Garden Plant!!

Breeder Arie Blom & his Hot Papaya Coneflower

I’d like to introduce you to the man behind many of the very BEST double-flowered Coneflowers currently in American gardens. He is our very good friend, Arie Blom of The Netherlands. Arie studied advanced plant breeding at the University of Florida and after receiving his graduate degree, he worked in a tissue culture laboratory in California before returning to Holland.

Arie is an extremely friendly guy and is passionate about his breeding work with Echinacea. I’ve had many opportunities to sit down and talk with Arie and I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to visit his seedling fields this summer!

Arie began breeding Coneflowers in 2002 and started in his backyard. A few of his initial goals were to breed for very sturdy, vigorous garden plants with a heavy flowering tendancy.

Echinacea Pink Double Delight

Echinacea Pink Double Delight was Arie’s very first introduction and he hit it out of the ballpark!

This bright double pink Coneflower has multitudes of large 2-3″ flowers held atop very strong stems that don’t flop in the dirt. Plants are very well branched and produce a flower show from mid-June until September!

Echinacea Coconut Lime

Arie’s second introduction was Echinacea Coconut Lime. His breeding goal was to produce a full double-white coneflower and he greatly succeeded!

Coconut Lime Coneflower is extremely floriferous with large 3″ flowers of white which turn a pleasant lime-green as they age. Its strong stems and heavy flower count make it a perfect subject for cut-flowers.

Many people don’t realize that DOUBLE Coneflowers will last over 2 weeks as cut flowers indoors. And, many are highly fragrant…which adds to the show!

Echinacea Hot Papaya

Then along comes the FIRST-EVER DOUBLE Orange Coneflower with Arie’s Echinacea Hot Papaya! WOW!

When I first saw Hot Papaya Coneflower, I could not believe how tremendously STRONG the stems were! They were like thick pencils! This interspecific cross (a cross between 2 species) has produced this amazingly colorful hybrid with its giant 3″ flowers of brilliant orange and fully double.

Hot Papaya Echinacea also has wonderfully fragrant flowers and I had them last over 18 days as CUT FLOWERS in our offices of Great Garden Plants.

I have the extreme privilege of calling Arie Blom my friend! He is a very passionate plantsman with a willingness to share with others!

Stay tuned NEXT WEEK when I’ll show you his BEST new Double Coneflower for 2011!!! You won’t be disappointed! Chris