The Best New Annual Flowers of 2022

January 18th, 2022

   A new heavy-blooming petunia with petite white flowers, two new flowers you’ve probably never seen before, and the world’s first trailing salvia are among a banner slate of interesting new annual flowers debuting in the 2022 growing season.

   Growers, local garden centers, and other plant experts picked those and more for the four-part, best-new-plants series I compile each January – a good month for gardeners to plan what to plant in the coming season.

   The article on best new edibles of 2022 appeared last Tuesday, Jan. 11. The best new perennial flowers of 2022 will post next Tuesday, Jan. 25, and the best new trees and shrubs of 2022 is scheduled for Feb. 1.

   Some of the following new annual flowers are available in seeds or plants online and in some plant catalogs. Most also will show up in plant form in local garden centers beginning in late April to early May.

   The details:

Texas primrose Ladybird Sunglow

   Looking for something different? This new variety of a not-so-well-known, heat-tough, Texas-native flower is the favorite new-for-2022 annual of Chris Wallen, a grower at the wholesale Quality Greenhouses near Dillsburg.

   Known botanically as Calylophus, Ladybird Sunglow has bright yellow flowers that resemble evening primrose.

   “It flowered in my home garden non-stop since May and survived that first 23-degree hard (fall) freeze,” Wallen said. “Deer ignored it while eating plants all around it.”

   Ladybird Sunglow grows four to six inches tall, has a mounding habit, is attractive to pollinators, and has no known pest or disease problems.

   “This seems nearly bulletproof,” Wallen says.

   Plants do best in full sun.

Jamesbrittenia Safari Dawn

   Another new and different annual debuting in 2022 is this bicolor little rosy-pink and yellow bloomer from Proven Winners that looks a bit like sutera (a.k.a. bacopa).

   Wallen says Safari Dawn is a “gigantic improvement over Jamesbrittenia of 15 years ago. It has beautiful bicolor blooms, a nice full habit, and it’s tough and easy to grow. Plants at my house and at the (Penn State) Landisville trial gardens bloomed all summer. My plants also survived that 23-degree hard freeze.”

   Sometimes known as South African phlox, this new Jamesbrittenia grows six to 12 inches tall in a mounding habit and does well in full sun to part shade. Deer don’t like it.

   Fellow Quality Greenhouses growers Andrew Pierozak and Jason Smith also rate Safari Dawn as a 2022 favorite.

   Proven Winners says that “this heat-tolerant South African native has seemingly been on the cusp of greatness for years but has never quite broken through with the right combination of plant performance and beauty. We have finally cracked the code.”

Lantana Bloomify Pink

   Sinclair Adam, director of Penn State’s Trial Gardens in Lancaster County, picks this new lantana as one of his three favorite new annual flowers of 2022 for its heavy bloom and vibrant color.

   Flowers open yellow and mature to pink, usually displaying both at the same time for a bicolor appearance.

   Quality Greenhouses grower Karen Adams also rates Bloomify Pink as her favorite new 2022 annual because it’s sterile (i.e. no seeding around), it blooms non-stop all season, and “like all lantana, is deer-resistant, attracts pollinators, and is drought-tolerant.”

   Plants grow 12 to 16 inches tall and wide and perform best in full sun.

Petunia Itsy White

   Sinclair Adam’s second best-new-annual is this white-blooming petunia with the unusually small but plentiful flowers.

   “The Itsy cultivars feature small flowers close to calibrachoa in size, but what a profusion of blooms all season long!” he says.

   Itsy White does as well in the ground as in pots and baskets and makes a blanket of white all season with its profuse, dime-sized flowers.

   Plants grow four to six inches tall and can spread two feet each.

Zinnia Profusion Red Yellow Bicolor

   Third on Adam’s 2022 annual hit list is this red-yellow bicolor zinnia that debuted last year by winning a 2021 All-America Selections Gold Medal award for its outstanding performance in nationwide trials.

   Adam likes Profusion Red Yellow Bicolor’s striking flower color and says the variety looked great all season at Penn State’s Trial Gardens in Lancaster County as well as at its two satellite sites at Hershey Gardens and Pittsburgh’s North Park.

   Profusion Red Yellow Bicolor flowers start as golden-yellow with a vibrant red center, then morph into softer shades of apricot, salmon, and dusty rose.

   Plants grow about a foot tall, ideally in full sun. It’s also an easy plant to direct-seed into the ground after all danger of frost has passed.

Petunia Bee’s Knees

   This new yellow-blooming petunia was the only plant good enough to win a 2022 AAS Gold Medal, and it’s also the favorite new annual of Deb Shearer, co-owner of Ashcombe Farm and Greenhouses in Monroe Twp.

   Shearer especially likes Bees Knees’ bright yellow flower color, which is ground-breaking for the normally more pastel and relaxed colors of petunias.

   It’s the first petunia to win an AAS Gold Medal Award since 1950.

   Bee’s Knees is heavy blooming and grows only about 10 inches tall but spreads nearly two feet across, making it a good choice for hanging baskets. It flowers best in full sun.

Begonia Viking Explorer Rose on Green

   Two other new annual flowers performed well enough in national trials to earn “regular” 2022 All-America Selections awards.

   Begonia Viking Explorer Rose on Green is the first of the two, and it’s a trailing begonia with a very heavy bloom of rosy-pink flowers that’s ideal for a hanging basket or pot.

   The variety has glossy green foliage, good heat- and disease-tolerance, and handles both wet and dry conditions.

   It grows 16 inches tall with a 32-inch spread and grows in full sun or part shade.

Sunflower Concert Bell

   This second 2022 AAS winner is distinct for its clusters of five- to six-inch-wide golden-yellow flowers on sturdy five- to six-foot-tall stems.

   Rather than produce one or just a few big flowers at the top of the stem, Concert Bell produces 10 to 12 big flowers per plant that grow all around and down the stem.

   “It has a novel blooming habit,” said one AAS judge. “It’s a sunflower bouquet on a single stalk.”

   Concert Bell also blooms slightly earlier than most other sunflowers, makes a good cut flower (the blooms are pollenless), and has exceptionally sturdy stems that hold up in windy conditions. Staking usually isn’t needed.

   It grows best in full sun and can be direct-seeded over several staggered plantings to produce flowers all summer until frost.

Sunflower ‘Busy Bee’

   Another new sunflower worth trying is this one, which is the favorite 2022 annual of W. Atlee Burpee Co. product manager Venelin Dimitrov.

   Dimitrov says ‘Busy Bee’ produces “cheerful” five- to seven-inch-wide golden flowers, but what really distinguishes it is how much bees seem to like the flowers.

   “They bustle with buzzing pollinators,” he says, adding that the seeds make a good Thanksgiving feast for birds as well.

   Plants grow three to four feet tall and do best in full sun. As with Concert Bell, ‘Busy Bee’ can be direct-seeded over several staggered plantings to produce flowers all summer until frost.

Salvia Bodacious Hummingbird Falls

   If you’re a hummingbird fan and don’t grow Salvia guaranitica, you’re missing the single best hummingbird attractor plant.

   Bodacious Hummingbird Falls is a new Salvia guaranitica variety that’s being billed as the world’s first trailing, hanging-basket salvia.

   Quality Greenhouses grower Jason Smith picks this as his favorite new-for-2022 annual.

   He likes the deep blue-purple, black-based tubular flowers and says that Bodacious Hummingbird Falls has a “basket-friendly habit that allows the hummers to be at eye level when feeding.”

   Plants grow a foot to 18 inches tall and 24 to 30 inches wide in full sun to part shade. A bonus: deer also don’t like this one.

Begonia I’Conia ‘Scentiment Peachy Keen’

   Not a lot of flowers have old-fashioned good fragrance these days, but as its name implies, this new annual begonia smells as nice as it looks.

   Monica Gembusia, the annual and perennial manager at Highland Gardens in Lower Allen Twp., picks I’Conia ‘Scentiment Peachy Keen’ as her favorite new 2022 annual for its “outstanding two-tone, fragrant, double flowers that contrast with its dark foliage.’

   “It’s perfect for both containers and hanging baskets,” Gembusia says.

   Plants grow 10 to 14 inches tall, do best in part shade, and bloom in a blend of yellow, cream, and peach.

   ‘Scentiment Peachy Keen’ also was good enough to earn the Greenhouse Grower trade publication’s Industry’s Choice Award and a FleuroStar award for its performance in European trials.

Bidens Spicy Electric White

   Hardly anyone grows or even knows bidens, which look a bit like miniature marigolds with their typically bright little flowers of red, orange, and/or gold.

   The five-color Taka Tuka series is particularly good for its summer-long flowers that don’t need deadheading and aren’t popular with the deer and bunnies.

   A new-for-2022 one that caught my eye in Penn State’s Trial Gardens last summer is one called Spicy Electric White, which is different for its bright white and yellow bicolor flowers.

   Plants grow about 14 to 16 inches tall and do best in full sun.

Rex begonia Jurassic series

   If you like colorful foliage and have some shady spots in the yard, four variations of Jurassic Rex begonias are debuting in 2022.

   Jurassic, Jurassic Dino, and Jurassic Jr. grow 14 to 16 inches tall, while Jurassic Megalo grows about two feet tall. Within each are varieties that come in all sorts of painterly color blends, including pink, rose, burgundy, silver, green, creamy-white and nearly black – often with swirls or mottling patterns to boot.

   Jurassic Dino is the most compact version, while Jurassic Jr. has markedly smaller leaves than the rest.

   Joan Mazat, head of new product development for Ball Ingenuity, which is introducing the series, says any of these also can go inside over winter as a potted foliage plant.

Coleus Spitfire

   Another showy new foliage annual is this new coleus variety that has narrow rose and burgundy leaves with lime-green margins.

   Spitfire is being billed as a foot-tall “micro-coleus” by Ball FloraPlant, which is introducing the variety.

   It’s versatile enough to grow in sun or shade and in pots or the ground, says Leland Toering, Ball FloraPlant’s sales manager.

Coleus Copperhead, Vulcan, and Limewire

   Ball is introducing a line of three other colorful new coleus that do sun as well as shade.

Copperhead has red-orange leaves, Vulcan is red with pink veins, and Limewire has velvety deep-burgundy leaves.

   All three are distinctive for their scalloped leaves that have ruffled, lime-colored margins and leaf undersides. Each grows in a range of 14 to 28 inches tall.

Read George’s post on Best New Annual Flowers of 2021