The Best New Trees and Shrubs of 2023
January 31st, 2023
The world’s first cascading hydrangea, a lime-and-black-leafed weigela, and a really skinny arborvitae are among the most interesting new trees and shrubs hitting the market for the 2023 growing season.
Growers, local garden centers, and other plant experts mentioned the following 14 choices for the Best New Trees and Shrubs installment of my annual four-part, best-new-plants series.
In case you missed them, posts on the Best New Vegetables, Herbs, and Fruits of 2023, the Best New Annual Flowers of 2023, and the Best New Perennial Flowers of 2023 appeared here in the past three weeks.
Some of the following new tree and shrub varieties are available online and in some plant catalogs. Most also will be available in local garden centers beginning in April.
The details:
Hydrangea Fairytrail Bride
Japanese plant breeder Ushio Sakazaki married three different species of hydrangeas to create an all-new type of hydrangea that Proven Winners is introducing to the U.S. in 2023 – one with a cascading habit and flowers that keep coming throughout the season.
Fairytrail Bride is the “No. 1 plant on my hit list,” says Dauphin County Master Gardener Kevin Kelly. “It’s a break-through, a whole different class of hydrangea.”
Kelly says the variety, which won the Best Plant Award at the 2018 Chelsea Flower Show when it debuted in Britain, “has flowers at every node. There are so many flowers that the weight of them pulls the branches down, which gives the plant its trailing habit.”
Fairytrail Bride’s lacecap flowers open white in June, taking on a pink blush as they age.
Proven Winners is billing the new introduction as the “world’s first cascading hydrangea” and says it’ll grow three to four feet tall and slightly wider, in full sun or part shade, and in pots or the ground.
Hydrangea Pop Star
The biggest issue with common bigleaf hydrangeas is that cold winters often kill the flower buds, meaning the plants bloom poorly or not at all.
Pop Star is a new variety coming to Bailey Nurseries’ Endless Summer line that’s exceptionally bud-hardy as well as being compact (three feet tall and wide). It’s also a rebloomer.
“Pop Star is an amazing advancement in the crowded space of bigleaf hydrangeas,” says Bailey’s marketing and communications manager Ryan McEnaney, who rates the variety as his favorite new plant of 2023. “I’ve had this plant in my yard for three years, and it continues to keep its compact size and bloom like crazy, even in my Zone 4 landscape.” (That’s two zones colder than the Harrisburg area.)
Pop Star also won the Retailer’s Choice award at the 2022 AmericanHort Cultivate industry show as the best new shrub with the potential to become a garden-center best-seller.
Like all bigleaf hydrangeas, Pop Star does best in sites with morning sun and afternoon shade.
Hydrangea Seaside Serenade Glacier Bay and Fire Island
A second new bigleaf hydrangea debuting in 2023 is another compact rebloomer called Glacier Bay that sports pure-white lacecap blooms with nicely contrasting black stems.
“Glacier Bay doesn’t look like a traditional hydrangea,” says Monrovia Nurseries’ chief marketing officer Katie Tamony, who rates the variety as her favorite new shrub. “The dramatic black stems and lovely star-shaped white blooms make this an elegant specimen for more modern gardens.”
Glacier Bay blooms in early summer and again in fall on plants that grow about three feet tall and wide.
Newly retired Penn State Master Gardener coordinator Nancy Knauss likes another new Seaside Serenade entry called Fire Island.
It’s a reblooming bigleaf/mophead-type but has flowers that are “white with a frilly, rosy-pink edge when they emerge, slowly maturing to deep pink with age,” as Knauss describes it.
She adds that Fire Island’s foliage takes on an attractive maroon color in spring and fall.
Ideal siting for both of these varieties is morning sun and afternoon shade.