Fall Garden Trial 2014!

The Fall Garden has been in the ground since 8/29/2014 and is ready for it first frost (maybe this weekend!). We have 372 items out there, mainly pansies and viola that we will over winter and do final ratings in April.





































One series that is standing  out right now have been the Cool Wave series. Cool Wave Frost, Violet Wing, Golden Yellow and Lemon Surprise are the strongest of the series.

Cool Wave Violet Wing

Cool Wave Lemon Surprise

Cool Wave Golden Yellow

Cool Wave White, Sunshine and Whine and Blue Skies right now have average ratings but are starting to spread. White seems like the weakest.

Cool Wave White

Cool Wave Sunshine and Wine

Cool Wave Blue Skies

In honor of Halloween a look at Orange Pansies! Orange has been one of the toughest color to find a plant that does good in the pack and the garden (Sim may retire if he finds the perfect Orange Pansy). Right now the best looking one in the garden is Syngenta Mariposa Orange with it's nice habit and strong flowering.

 Wondering about that Cement Truck in the first picture? We are redoing the wall along the parking lot side. The brick wall was always challenging and has collapsed 3 times  (thank goodness never on someone or before an open house!). We are getting a new concrete retaining wall to hold back the parking lot!

So Long To The 2014 Annual Test Garden

We will be putting the annual trial garden to bed next week in preparation for putting in the Pansy over winter trial. We have about 350 pansy, violas and other cool season crop we will putting out and evaluating monthly. The perennials will also be spending the winter out there so we can review them again next year.

So today I took one last (sad) walk through the garden looking for items that answer the question "what would I want in my garden". These are the best of the best surviving 5 months of NC weather.

From the Petunia Beds
The two replicates of petunia responded differently this year. The lower bed had a lot more disease pressure than the upper level. I would say we had 90% survival on the upper level and 20% survival on the lower level. So what was the big winner in the lower level? Trilogy Salmon Morn from Taki is still looking great

Geraniums
All the geraniums all did great this year. The best looking one now in September was kind of a surprise but  Shone Von Rheinberg Wild Salmon  from Dummen definitely is the best looking one and is covered in flowers.

SunPatiens
These things still look awesome right up to the end!

Shade Garden
Coleus The coleus all look good though many are starting to flower. One stand out right now is Coleus Broadway from Dummen. This coleus has nice shape and nice clean foliage.

 Petchoa
Supercal Violet is the king of the Petchoa. This plant has looked great all season and is still nice and clean.

 Happy Gardening!

Dr. Mark

Labor Day Lantana and some Phlox

Happy start to your Labor Day weekend. The test garden is in final few weeks before we have to start prepping for pansy season..

This weeks pick is on the summer loving lantana. Two great looking ones are new Bandanas from Syngenta

First is the new Bandana Cherry which has nice uniform habit.

Next is Bandana Peach which also looks to be a real nice plant with excellent habit.

When Syngenta says something is trailing, they mean it. Bandana Trailing Gold is new this year and it is a monster (it is almost blocking the road to Abe's house!). Gardeners should have a real sense of accomplishment with this item.

Phlox continues to look nice in the garden.

I had this one selected a few weeks ago and it is still flowering nicely. Dummen's Early White continues to have a good flower show.

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If you organize a garden alphabetically like we do Amaranthas will be in your first bed. Amaranthus Carnival from the English guys at Thompson and Morgon has been a pretty sickly plant all season. We were only able to get a few through propagation and only one survived in both replicate beds. Early season the foliage was a magnet for Japanese beetles who treated it like a salad bar.The one plant in the first bed that you walk to split last week.  What has survived in the second replicate though is pretty spectacular.

SuperCal Petchoa is (mostly) Super Nice!

SuperCal Petchoa from Sakata have been bred for their garden performance. We have several in the garden this year that have been doing very well.

First up is is the most stunning of the group SuperCal Violet. This is just a mass of color!

We have two "glow" colors that are spilling over the side of the bed. Super Cal Salmon Glow has the most color right now and probably could fill the whole bed by itself.



SuperCal Salmon is similar and has a very good habit but is a little weaker at the moment in color. I think gardeners would be happy though with the habit.



Supercal Neon Rose/Yellow Throat is another new one. It has filled the bed and has lots of color. It does have a little foliage browning in the canopy. It has been out since August and survived some massive storms and is flowering just great!

SuperCal Cherry Improved is definitely improved. It has bright, bright red (well ok Cherry) colored flowers and very nice foliage.

The one
disappointment in the SuperCal department is Grape. This plant was stunning in the last June rating (a 4) but died off sometimes after. I won't share the picture of the empty plot now but will show the June Photo off the website.


The perennial of the week is a Rose from EuroAmerican called Sunbelt Desmond Tutu. This plant has great flower show and clean foliage (where is the rust? There is none) looks to be a great garden winner.

Red, Red, Wine Colored Celosia and Schnapps colored Hibiscus! Friday Happy Hour in the Test Garden

In the garden today I would like to show off some of Beekenkamps Celosia! The breeders at Beekenkamp submitted a whole bunch of them this year and they are looking and flowering very nicely this late in the season.

The Kelos Magenta right now is my favorite with it dark purple foliage and nice bright flower.These plants all started as compact Celosia that would fit nicely in a 6" pot. They have grown ti fill their bed and are now Celosia shrubs!

Kelos Magenta

Beekenkamp also included some numbered ones that are looking more compact but with larger flowers. One example is this CEPL 1584 which has filled the beds but has kept it nice flower plume.

The largest flowering plant in the garden has to be this Hibiscus from Aris Green Leaf Plants. It is part of their Cordials Peppermint Schnapps. This plant has flowered pretty consistently all season with these huge flowers. These are zone 7 perennial that we will over winter and evaluate again next year.

For Chris Copeland.-Humming Bird On A Wire in the test garden!

What's That Plant Called?

One of the recent concepts we learned from our focus group is the importance of the name of the plant plays in consumers acceptance. I have two great examples!

The plant that brought this naming issue to light was a perennial in the trial garden called Tradescantia Amethyst Kiss from the fine folks at Conrad Pyle. This is a beautiful blue flowered plant that was selected by one of our focus group participants as her favorite plant. In the discussion about this plant you could hear the difficulty the name was causing this lady. Basically who wants a plant that you can't tell your friend what the name is. 

Tradescantia!

Another example is Scaevola. Scaevola is an under utilized great garden performing plant (see the second picture below at  corner of Oma Avenue and Club V Drive). The common name of Scaevola is "Fan Flower" which describes exactly what the flower looks like as opposed to being named after the 500 BC Roman, Gaius Mucius Scaevola.

The Fan Flower below is a great one newly released by Westhoff called Jewel. It is mainly white with a hint of blue in the flower.

Fan Flower at the Corner of Club V Drive and Oma Avenue in Huntersville

Ps to pronounce Tradescantia it is TRAD-A-SCAN-TEE-A)

Cool Caladium and Gerberas that come back.

Nothing gives you more foliage excitement than a Caladium. Tapestry Caladium is probably my favorite out there right now. It has great garden performance and is about 3 feet tall right now in the ground beds. The foliage has not gotten beaten up at all by all the rain we have and the color is really bright.

 We do everything in the ground and in a 2.88 Gallon Pot. Tapestery is doing great in the pot as well.




 Garvina Gerbera have been around a while and they keep refining the colors. Their claim to fame is multiple blooms coming out of each plant. Well this claim is true! These plants have been blooming up a storm for weeks now. The orange flowered Sophia is probably my favorite with many bright orange flowers!

Garvinea Orangina!

 Garvinea Lisa!

 Garvinea Cinderalla!

Garvinea Sunny!

Garvinea Sweet is a new series to the line. They have several colors with Sweet Glow being my favorite.

The Peppers are starting to come in color!

Happy Gardening!
Dr. Mark

Pretty Petunias and A Sunny Perennial In The Shade

The last few weeks have been brutal on petunias. High heat, followed by heavy rain is a good testing ground for petunias. There are still many petunias doing great out there!

Right now the best of the best would have to be Pan American Seeds Tidal Wave Wave Cherry. While it is hard to see in this picture, yes it is growing outside the bed (I am a little worried it will block the aisle!) This was submitted by All American Selections so is being tested at garden all around the United States.

The perennial this week is in our shade garden (which nearly got blown down yesterday by the storm) is called Sun King (I guess it was supposed to go in the sun? oops). Well it is doing excellent in the shade both in the containers and in the ground. It gives use that chartreuse color with a lot more body than  you get from Ipomea.

And keeping with my them last week of very tall plants, this weeks monsters are supplied courtesy of James Greenhouse. The darker leaf Colocasia (better know as Elephant Ears) is called is aptly name Black Coral.


The green leaf one is called Hawaiian Punch and is also aptly name since it is beating up everything around it.


Happy Gardening
Dr. Mark