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