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

Hot Pack Marigolds!

Marigolds are a staple of the bedding plant market. And as we have learned they have great sell through! Pan American Seed has been innovating in this area, working on better summer flowering. Their new "Hot Pack" series does seem to be delivering. We have the First Look samples in the garden and they have been flowering very nicely and do seem to flowering better than some of the older genetics out there.



Here is an example of a competitive Marigolds

The perennial Plant of the Week is Heliopsis Tuscan Sun from Walters Garden. This thing is a mass of bee friendly yellow flowers. It is a little uneven habit wise but I think that is some of its charm!

The Fun Plant of the Week is Pennisetum Black Stockings which was supplied by Aris. This thing is tall (>6 feet 4 inches) and sturdy as a rock. A hedge of these things and you would not see your neighbors till winter!

The Small Calibrachoa that could!

We have been using Calipetite Calibrachoas from Sakata in combos in production this year and they have great consumer acceptance. They have been in the Secret garden for a couple years and done very well. However I  never had a good side by side garden comparison to regular calibrachoas until this year in the public garden. Well now I am sure they are as good as (or sometimes even better) than regular calibrachoas! They are compact little balls that have filled in their 12" by 12" spacing in plenty of time. They have a neat and tidy habit and with plenty of color too please!
 

 

 

 Calipetite Pink!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Calipetite Red!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Calipetite Yellow!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Calipetite Mid (Breeder) Blue!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Perennials

My head was about to explode trying to pick the perennial of the week. There is a lot of nice stuff out there right now! My pick of the week is Echibeckia Summerina Orange and  Sumerina Yellow. These are the cross between Echinacea (the "Echi-" part of the name) and Rudbeckia (the "-beckia" part) taking the best characteristics of both. These have nice stocky happy and very large showy flowers. They look as good in the garden as the breeders pictures and the plants in California!

Happy Independence Day

I hope you had a great July 4th. This weeks blog focuses on Red. White and Blue plants in the garden!

Red!
There are lots of good looking red items. In the shade garden we have Vermillium Red Begonia. This begonia has filled it space and has incredible bright reg flowers!







In the perennial garden who doesn't like roses? Sunbelt Desmond Tutu is looking disease fre with lots of bright red flowers.
White!
Back to the shade garden, Bounce White impatiens have a great habit and performance.

In great color this week, the perennial Phlox 'Early White'. This is a compact plant but nice color.

BLUE!
As we always talk about, there is blue and then there is breeder blue. The bluest item out there is Sallyfun Dark Blue Ocean can not be beaten.

Veronica Rocket Power Blue from Beekenkamp has intense 'blue' color this week and great habit.

The butterflies pick this week!