By Delilah Onofrey, Suntory Flowers
Photographs courtesy of Suntory Flowers
One of the best parts about gardening with annuals is every spring is a clean slate! You can completely change your color scheme or take what worked in previous years and add something new to keep it fresh. Here are five new annuals that will make their debut at retail this spring:
Perfect for early spring, Senetti plants offer cool colors for the cool season! Plants will withstand temperatures down to 35°F. New ‘Senetti White Red Heart’ is loaded with white daisy flowers with red velvet centers. Pair with other early spring plants, such as pansies, nemesia, osteospermum and flowering bulbs. Plants can be cut back for a fresh flush of blooms, but will stop flowering in summer’s heat.
Suntory’s super strawflower is available in four colors. Three that are new this year are Pink, Harvest Orange and Peachy Keen. Vigorous plants are twice the size of typical strawflowers and make an impressive statement in the landscape and large planters. Harvest the large blooms to make dried flower crafts! The entire Granvia series has demonstrated outstanding landscape performance and mildew resistance through summer and fall in the North and South.
Fans of scaevola appreciate their summer performance. New to Surdiva scaevolas is Lilac Mist, a pretty light purple that fills in beds, containers, and hanging baskets. Compared to other scaevolas, the Surdiva series is tidy and compact. Fan flowers are produced on short internodes all the way up the stem. Mix with other heat lovers or each other. Six colors include Sky Blue, Blue Violet, White Improved, Fashion Pink, Purple, and the new Lilac Mist.
Surfinia Heavenly petunias are the most versatile and the happy medium. Controlled, semi-trailing habit is more restrained than classic trailing varieties. Icy lavender flowers have dark purple throats, creating a bicolor burst. Surfinia petunias are selected for outstanding weather tolerance and garden performance. Additional Surfinia Heavenly varieties are Heavenly Cabernet and the top-selling Heavenly Blue.
One new direction in Surfinia petunia breeding is compact plants with large flowers. Surfinia XXL series produces blooms spanning 3.5 inches in diameter in bright colors: Taffy Pink, Salmon Vein and Watermelon Jazz. Plants are more upright and mounding than trailing, much more controlled than the Surfinia Sumo petunias bred to fill out landscape beds and very large planters and hanging baskets. They are big on blooms but won’t take over.
By Dan Heims, President, Terra Nova Nurseries, Inc.
Photographs courtesy of Terra Nova Nurseries, Inc.
Terra Nova’s breeders have created a series of outstanding world-class echinaceas that are consistent in size, bloom power, color intensity and are a pollinator buffet. What’s not to like.
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