Award-Winning Plants of 2023

March 7th, 2023

   Why wing it with your plant selection when you can weigh the word of experts who know the difference among the good, the bad, and the so-so’s?

   Each year, organizations of growers, horticulturists, researchers, and other plant experts bestow awards on what they consider to be the top plant performers – some new, some old, and some just under-used because few gardeners know them. (Disclosure: George is a member of that Gold Medal panel.)

   Here’s a look at plants that have won honors for 2023:

Pennsylvania Gold Medal

   A panel of experts assembled by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (best known for running the Philadelphia Flower Show) each year picks a half-dozen trees, shrubs, and perennials worthy of greater use in Pennsylvania landscapes.

   For 2023, two trees, two perennials, one flowering shrub, and one evergreen shrub made the Gold Medal grade. All happen to be U.S. native species.

Swamp white oak

   This long-lived, native shade tree grows fairly fast to 50 feet and is a good food source for multiple species of pollinators, birds, squirrels, and other native wildlife. It’s tolerant of urban conditions and less-than-ideal soil. Fall foliage is yellow.

Black gum Green Gable

   Black gum Green Gable is a variety that stands out for its pyramidal habit and brilliant blood-red fall foliage. The tree grows about 50 feet tall but about half as wide. It tolerates wet soil, produces few (if any) fruits, and makes a good substitute for the flowering pears that Pennsylvania is banning due to invasiveness.

Indian pinks

   Indian pinks are native perennials that produce red, early-summer tubular flowers that are especially attractive to hummingbirds. Plants grow about two feet tall in full sun to part shade. They’re seldom bothered by deer. 

Ironweed ‘Iron Butterfly’

   ‘Iron Butterfly’ was singled out as a particularly good variety of native ironweed for its compact habit and long-blooming purple flowers that butterflies and hummingbirds like. The fern-like foliage is also attractive. Plants grow two to three feet tall in sun to light shade.

Viburnum Chicago Lustre

   Chicago Lustre is a reliable variety of native arrowwood viburnum, especially known for its glossy green foliage, late-spring white flowers, and bird-attracting blue/black fruits in the fall. Plants grow about 12 feet tall and 10 feet wide in sun or part shade.

Juniper ‘Grey Owl’

   An oldie-but-goodie, ‘Grey Owl’ is a spreading, spray-formed needled evergreen with a proven track record of tolerating heat, drought, and poor soil. The foliage is blue-tinted. Deer don’t bother junipers, and this one also produces small silvery-gray “berries” in fall and winter. It grows about three to four feet tall and six to eight feet wide in full sun to light shade.

Green Ribbon Native Plants

   This program, run by the staff and Horticulture Committee at Jenkins Arboretum and Gardens in Devon, Pa., focuses on singling out some of our region’s best native plants for home landscapes.

   Three plants won 2023 Green Ribbon awards:

American persimmon

   Female versions of this 30- to 40-foot-tall native tree produce soft, golfball-sized, apricot-like, late-season fruits when pollinated by a male. Birds like the fruits if you don’t. Leaves turn golden-orange in fall. Best in full sun.

Lady fern

   This green-leafed, clump-forming, slow-spreading native fern typically grows one to two feet tall with a somewhat arching habit. Leaves turn yellow after fall frost. Prefers shade to part shade, and like most ferns, hardly ever is browsed by deer.

Prairie dropseed

   Prairie dropseed is a compact, arching, U.S.-native prairie grass with thin, wispy foliage and a clumping habit. Grows two to three feet tall and turns burnt red-gold in fall. Late-summer seed heads are coppery-blond. Also not a deer favorite. Best in full sun.

Perennial Plant of the Year

   Members of the Perennial Plant Association vote to honor one perennial plant each year that’s superior in terms of performance, low care, pest resistance, and multiple-season interest. The 2023 winner is…

Rudbeckia ‘American Gold Rush’

   This heavy-blooming, pollinator-friendly, native black-eyed susan has big, bright, golden flowers, a long bloom time throughout most of summer, and superior disease-resistance.

   It’s such a strong performer that it’s also won a 2020 All-America Selections national award and a 2021 Gold Medal regional award from the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society.

   Plants grow a little more than two feet tall. Best bloom is in full sun.

Garden Club of America Plant of the Year

   This award is bestowed by the national organization of garden clubs, which appoints a plant-expert panel to name one outstanding U.S.-native plant worthy of the Montine McDaniel Freeman Medal.

   The 2023 medal-winner:

Coral honeysuckle

   Coral honeysuckle is a native, woody, winter-hardy, twining vine that produces tubular red flowers for weeks in summer. It’s drought-tough, deer-resistant, and especially attractive to hummingbirds. Performs well in sun or part shade.

   2023 honorable mentions went to American beautyberry, a native shrub known for its BB-sized purple fruits, and spicebush, a native shrub with early-spring yellow flowers and red fall berries.

All-America Selections

   Independent researchers each year evaluate hundreds of new flowers and vegetables in dozens of trial gardens throughout the United States. The highest scorers get All-America Selections awards in a program that dates to 1932.

   Two new vegetables, two new annual flowers, one new perennial, and one new tropical foliage plant were good enough to win 2023 national AAS honors.

Jalapeno pepper San Joaquin

   San Joaquin matures most of its four-inch fruits in a short time frame, making it ideal for those growing jalapenos for canning, pickling, or making salsa. The fruits are thick-walled, mildly hot, and ready to pick green 60 days from planting (maturing to red if left a few more weeks). Plants grow 30 inches tall, ideally in full sun.

Squash Sweet Jade

   Sweet Jade is a single-serving-sized, kabocha-type winter squash that’s both high-yielding and long-keeping. The round, flat-topped green fruits are only four to five inches around, two pounds in weight, ready to pick 100 days from direct-seeding, and have deep orange flesh inside. Plants have a vining habit that can send arms out six to eight feet. Best in full sun.

Coleus Premium Sun Coral Candy

   This annual variety is the first seed-grown coleus ever to win AAS honors. Coral Candy has narrow, serrated, tricolor leaves (dark green, cream, and bubble-gum pink) on compact plants that top out at about 15 inches. It does well in sun or shade.

Snapdragon DoubleShot Orange Bicolor

   DoubleShot Orange Bicolor is a new heat-tolerant annual snapdragon with double bicolor flowers of peachy-orange and white. Besides the novel flower color, AAS judges liked the variety for its strong stems and heavy bloom. Plants grow 18 to 20 inches tall in full sun to part shade.

Salvia Blue By You

   Salvia Blue by You is a heat- and drought-tough, bee-friendly variety that was the only new perennial good enough to earn a 2023 national All-America Selections award. AAS judges said Blue by You stood out for its large, purple flower spikes and its early bloom time – up to two weeks sooner than most mid-May-blooming salvias. Plants grow 22 inches tall, ideally in full sun.

Elephant ears Royal Hawaiian Waikiki

   This new eye-grabber is a tropical with huge, glossy leaves of three colors – green with creamy-white markings in the middle and rosy-pink markings inside of that. Royal Hawaiian Waikiki elephant ears makes a striking specimen in the ground or in a pot. It grows about three feet tall in full sun or part shade.

Green Thumb Award

   Originally a program of the Mailorder Gardening Association, Green Thumb is now run by the National Garden Bureau, a century-old non-profit organization that promotes gardening on behalf of the horticulture industry.

   A panel of NGB members (garden writers, breeders, retailers, brokers, and growers) picks winners based on four criteria: uniqueness, technological innovation, ability to solve a gardening problem or provide a gardening opportunity, and appeal to gardeners.

   Six plants won 2023 Green Thumb Awards:

Rose Eau de Parfum Bubbly

   Best flowering shrub honors went to this new rose with the large, double-petaled, fragrant, champagne-colored blooms. The variety is also long-blooming and disease-resistant. Grows four feet tall, ideally in full sun.

Astilbe ‘Dark Side of the Moon’

   This first dark-leafed astilbe with purple flowers earned a 2023 Green Thumb award as best perennial. Plants grow 20 to 22 inches tall and do best in part shade.

Elephant ears Royal Hawaiian Waikiki

   Waikiki also won a 2023 All-America Selections award (see details above) and tied as one of two top annuals worthy of 2023 Green Thumb honors.

Starflower ‘Paper Moon’

   The other 2023 Green Thumb annual is this “novelty” that produces pale blue pincushion flowers on wiry stems that turn into rounded, papery, bronze-colored seed pods. The flowers are ideal in bouquets. Plants grow two to three feet tall, ideally in full sun.

Tomato Sun Dipper

   The year’s Green Thumb edible is Sun Dipper, a crack-resistant, cherry-type tomato with fruits shaped like mini bowling pins to facilitate dipping. The fruits mature orange 60 to 65 days from planting. Best in full sun.

Tradescantia ‘Pistachio White’

   Green Thumb houseplant honors went to this new tradescantia with bright, heavy, white-and-green variegated foliage – a different option from the traditional rosy-purple, silver, and green tricolor leaves of this trailing plant. ‘Pistachio White’ grows about 10 inches tall and spreads about three feet out.

Herb Society Notable Native Herb

   Every year, the Herb Society of America’s Native Herb Conservation Committee selects one or more native plants that deserve recognition. The selections are called Notable Native Herbs (although not all are what’s generally considered to be herbs).

   For 2023, a “weed” and an evergreen won Notable Native honors:

Pokeweed

   That’s right… this tree-like, free-seeding perennial with the toxic leaves and staining purple fruits is also a native medical and dye plant that the Herb Society believes is worth honoring. Although most gardeners consider it to be a weed, bees like pokeweed’s white flowers, and birds eat the berries.

Common juniper

   This native needled evergreen grows in dry sites over most of the U.S. and can vary in forms from low, spreading shrubs to 50-foot-tall trees. It also produces blue fruits (technically cones).

American Garden Rose Selections

   This program of the rose industry and American Rose Society evaluates roses at 14 different trial gardens in six U.S. geographical regions, looking for superior performance in beauty, fragrance, ease of care, and especially disease resistance.

   Only one rose earned an AGRS award for the Northeast region in 2023:

OSO Easy Urban Legend

   Urban Legend is a landscape-type rose that produces double red flowers nearly continuously all season on no-spray plants. Plants grow about three feet tall and wide and do best in full sun.

   ‘Magnolia Memories’ is the 2023 Fragrance Award Winner. It’s a six-foot, repeat-blooming, antique rose with pale-pink flowers.

American Rose Trials for Sustainability

   A.R.T.S. is an independent, non-profit rose-evaluation program that aims to identify the regionally best roses in eight different U.S. climate regions.

   No-spray evaluations at 19 botanic-garden, university, and park trial sites look at bug and disease resistance, drought tolerance, beauty, vigor, and more over two years. Ones that out-perform the comparison industry standards win “Local Artist” awards.

   Two roses – both introduced by Chester County’s Star Roses and Plants – scored well enough to earn 2023 Local Artist honors in our region.

Pretty Polly White

   This compact, polyantha-type rose is a heavy bloomer with semi-double white flowers. The stems are nearly thornless, and the flowers have a light, sweet scent.    Plants grow about three feet tall and wide. (Pretty Polly White’s sister, Pretty Polly Pink, won an American Garden Rose Selections award last year.)

Petite Knock Out

   The newest addition to the popular Knock Out family, Petite is a miniature rose that grows into an 18-inch-tall compact mound. The flowers are cherry-red, and the plants are very long-blooming.

Rhododendrons of the Year

   Members of the American Rhododendron Society each year select top-performing rhododendrons and azaleas in eight different U.S. regions.

   Four winners were named for 2023 in the Mid-Atlantic region, which includes much of Pennsylvania. Ideal light for all of them is morning sun and afternoon shade.

Large-leaf rhododendron: ‘Cadis’

   Produces light pink flowers that are flushed yellow, wavy-edged, and fragrant. Grows in a dense, spreading habit to five feet tall in 10 years.

Small-leaf rhododendron: ‘April Rhapsody’

   Blooms are funnel-shaped and vivid purple. Leaves are semi-glossy and moderate to light yellow-green in color. Plants grow about two-and-a-half-feet tall in 10 years.

Evergreen azalea: ‘August to Frost’

   Flowers are white with a pale yellow-green blotch and wavy edges. It’s a long bloomer that can put out flowers sparingly but continuously from late summer to frost. Grows about two feet tall in 10 years.

Deciduous azalea: Rhododendron colemanii

   Native to Alabama and western Georgia, this leaf-dropping species produces white or pink flowers with yellow blotches. Grows six to seven feet tall in 10 years. Tolerates winter cold down to minus-5 degrees.

Hosta of the Year

   Members of the America Hosta Growers Association each year vote on a favorite hosta variety that must be a superior performer nationwide. This year’s winner:

‘Neptune’

   ‘Neptune’ is a two-foot-tall hosta that’s distinctive for its narrow, rippled, wedge-shaped leaves that start the season a bright blue and then morph into blue-green. The flowers are lavender, and plants are more resistant than most to slugs – hostas’ main nemesis. Shade to part shade is ideal light.

Urban Tree of the Year

   The Society of Municipal Arborists, whose members are government tree experts and urban foresters, each year picks a tree deserving greater use because of tolerance to harsh, urban conditions combined with “strong ornamental traits.”   

   The 2023 winner is:

Jacaranda

   Jacaranda is one of the most beautiful mid-sized trees when covered in its violet flowers, but it’s a sub-tropical species not even close to being winter-hardy in Pennsylvania.

   Enjoy it if you’re ever in South Africa or its native Argentina, but you can’t grow one in Harrisburg.