George's Current Ramblings and Readlings

The Best New Perennial Flowers of 2023

January 24th, 2023

   The first dark-leafed astilbe with purple flowers, a red-blooming delphinium, and a native alternative to salvia and lavender top the list of interesting new perennials debuting in the 2023 growing season.

Coneflower Artisan Yellow Ombre, one of 2023’s top new perennial-flower introductions. (Credit: All-America Selections)

   Growers, local garden centers, and other plant experts picked the following 14 choices for the Best New Perennials installment of my annual four-part, best-new-plants series.

   The post on Best New Vegetables, Herbs, and Fruits of 2023 appeared two weeks ago, and the one on Best New Annual Flowers of 2023 appeared last week. The series finishes next week with a look at the Best New Trees and Shrubs of 2023.

   The following new perennial flowers are available online and in some plant catalogs. They’ll start showing up in local garden centers in April.

   The details:

Coneflower Artisan Yellow Ombre

   This compact, disease-resistant, gold-yellow coneflower is the favorite new-for-2023 perennial of Penn State Flower Trials Director Sinclair Adam.

   Adam says Artisan Yellow Ombre blooms from June to September on plants that grew only 10 inches tall in the Penn State trials – significantly shorter than the projected 24-inch height.

   “The lovely yellow color makes a nice new addition to the Artisan series,” he says, adding that all of the Artisan Collection coneflowers have scored very well in Penn State trials.

   Yellow Ombre also was a strong enough performer in nationwide trials that it won 2023 All America Selections honors in the Southeast and Northwest regions of the U.S.

   I test-grew two Yellow Ombres last summer and also found the variety to have big and vibrant flowers on short, stocky plants that my resident deer didn’t touch.

   Being a native species, this plant is also attractive to birds and butterflies. It does best in full sun and is drought-tough once established.

Astilbe ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ (Credit: Walters Gardens)

Astilbe ‘Dark Side of the Moon’

   Fanciers of dark-leafed plants will love this new shade-tolerant perennial that’s the market’s first dark-leafed astilbe with purple flowers.

   The leaves of ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ emerge yellow with a glossy, dark margin and then morph to a uniform, deep-chocolate/burgundy, says Nicole Hoonhurst, spokesperson for Michigan-based Walters Gardens, which is introducing the plant under the Proven Winners brand.

   Hoonhurst rates it as her favorite new perennial of 2023. The variety also earned a 2023 National Garden Bureau Green Thumb award as the year’s best new perennial.

   ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ reaches 20 to 22 inches tall, including the late-summer rosy-purple flower spikes. It’ll do well in shade or part shade and even full sun if the soil is kept damp.

Loosestrife ‘Burgundy Mist’

   ‘Burgundy Mist’ is another new dark-leafed plant that Bryan Benner, the head perennial grower at wholesale Quality Greenhouses near Dillsburg, rates as his favorite new perennial of 2023.

   Benner likes how the burgundy foliage contrasts with the star-shaped yellow flowers. He says ‘Burgundy Mist’ grows quickly and densely to make a colorful, weed-choking groundcover. And he points out it’s a native form of loosestrife (Lysimachia lanceolata) that’s attractive to native bees.

   ‘Burgundy Mist’ has lance-like leaves, grows about 20 to 24 inches tall, and is resistant to heat, drought, and deer. The flowers open in July and persist through summer.

The Best New Annual Flowers of 2023

January 17th, 2023

   One of the best-blooming petunias yet, four striking new begonias, and a pair of disease-resistant impatiens are among a slew of interesting new annual flowers debuting in the 2023 growing season.

Petunia Itsy Magenta (Credit: Penn State Flower Trials)

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

   I focus on the Best New Annual Flowers of 2023 in today’s installment. In case you missed it, last week’s post covered the Best New Vegetables, Herbs, and Fruits of 2023. I’ll write posts the next two weeks on the Best New Perennial Flowers of 2023 and the Best New Trees and Shrubs of 2023.

   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:

Petunia Itsy Magenta

   Lots of petunias are super-bloomers these days, so it says something when a new variety outscores the field in side-by-side trials.

   That was the case last summer at the Penn State Flower Trials in Lancaster County where Director Sinclair Adam says Itsy Magenta clocked in as the best-scoring petunia out of nearly 90 competitors.

   Adam picks Itsy Magenta as one of his top new flowers of 2023, citing the variety’s “great blooming ability, compact habit, and clean foliage all season.”

   He says the trial plants bloomed non-stop from June to September in a deep-magenta shade.

   As the series name suggests, Itsy petunias are smaller-flowered than most petunias and also are mounding, trailing low-growers that are ideal in baskets and pots.

   Petunias do best in full sun to light shade.

Rudbeckia Sunbeckia ‘Carla’ (Credit: Penn State Flower Trials)

Rudbeckia Sunbeckia ‘Carla’

   Adam was also impressed with this new rudbeckia in the German-bred Sunbeckia series.

Sunbeckia ‘Carla’ has large three- to four-inch flowers that are bright gold with tinges of burgundy-red.

   Adams says that ‘Carla’ is not only showy (it scored a perfect 5 for blooms in the 2022 Penn State trials), it has a uniform habit and strong stems as well.

   It’s also fairly cold-hardy and could survive a milder central-Pennsylvania winter, so don’t yank these at season’s end. Wait to see if new growth appears the following spring.

   Plants grow about 32 inches tall, ideally in full sun or light shade.

Begonia Lunar Lights ‘Sterling Moon’ (Credit: Plants Nouveau)

Begonia Lunar Lights ‘Sterling Moon’

   One of the most striking foliage annuals hitting the market in 2023 is this first entry in a new showy-leafed, cold-tolerant begonia series called Lunar Lights.

   ‘Sterling Moon’ has big, textural, puckered mint-green leaves that are heavily variegated in silvery-white, making it look like the plant has been nearly covered in snow.

   “I love this new begonia,” says Plants Nouveau co-owner Angelina Treadwell-Palmer, who rates ‘Sterling Moon’ as her favorite 2023 new annual. “It makes a lovely patio plant in summer and an indoor plant in winter. The foliage is amazing.”

   Similar to Sunbeckia ‘Carla,’ ‘Sterling Moon’ is also cold-hardy enough to survive a mild central-Pennsylvania winter – or a warm microclimate. It’ll be sold as an annual, although another option is potting and growing them inside as houseplants over the winter.

   Outside, ‘Sterling Moon’ will do best in part shade, especially in a pot. Plants grow about 30 inches tall and 24 inches wide. Summer flowers are salmon-pink.

The Best New Vegetables, Herbs, and Fruits of 2023

January 10th, 2023

   Seedless peppers, a basil that fights off a troublesome disease, and a tomato bred for dipping highlight the list of what’s new in home-garden edibles for 2023.

Basil ‘Prospera.’ (Credit: Johnny’s Selected Seeds)

   Those are just a few of the many interesting new plants debuting this year.

   I’ll zero in on some of the year’s best new introductions this month, starting today with the Best New Vegetables, Herbs, and Fruits of 2023 and continuing with the Best New Annual Flowers of 2023, the Best New Perennial Flowers of 2023, and the Best New Trees and Shrubs of 2023 the following three weeks.

   Some of the following new edibles are already available in seeds or plants online and in catalogs. If any strike your fancy, it’s best to order ASAP before the supply dwindles.

   Local garden centers may carry at least some of these – seeds already and plants in April and May.

   Here’s what’s new and worth checking out:

Basil Prospera

   Basil used to be a fairly bullet-proof herb in home gardens until a downy-mildew disease emerged in Switzerland in 2003 and soon spread throughout the world. The disease now often causes deformed, spotted leaves in U.S. farms and gardens.

   To combat the problem, researchers in Israel teamed up with Israel-based Genesis Seeds to develop a hybrid called Prospera that uses mildew-resistant genes from wild basil.

   Seeds of Prospera basil are debuting this year in the Johnny’s Selected Seeds and Harris Seeds catalogs.

   Johnny’s also is carrying Prospera Red, the first purple-leafed basil with high resistance to downy mildew.

   Both of these disease-resistant, heat-tough basils grow 16 to 18 inches tall and do well in the ground as well as in pots. They grow best in full sun.

   Prospera’s arrival gives a less-expensive seed option to Amazel, a variety introduced two years ago as a costlier plant-only, mildew-resistant choice.

Seedless sweet pepper Pepper Pots Sugar Kick

   The breakthrough in this new sweet pepper in Proven Winners’ Proven Harvest line is that the fruits are seedless (at least when plants are kept isolated from other sweet peppers).

Pepper Pepper Pots Sugar Kick (Credit: Proven Harvest)

   Pepper Pots Sugar Kick produces a heavy yield of four- to six-inch cone-shaped fruits that are exceptionally sweet and crisp.

   Fruits are ready to eat green 54 days after setting plants out in the garden. Or wait another 20 days if you want mature orange fruits.

   Sugar Kick grows 20 to 30 inches tall, compact enough for growing in pots as well as in the ground. Production is best in full sun.

Sweet pepper Peppers from Heaven

   New in the Burpee Plants brand for 2023 is a compact, heavy-producing, three-color collection of sweet peppers called Peppers from Heaven.

   “The plants stay small but produce plenty of fleshy fruits that turn from green to glossy colors,” says Katie Rotella, a spokesperson for Ball Horticultural Co., the grower that’s introducing the collection. “There are three colors to choose from – Red, Yellow, and Orange.”

   Rotella says the plants grow just eight inches tall and a foot wide, making them ideal for small gardens, pots, window boxes, and hanging baskets.

   “Plant three plants in one pot for a fuller look, or mix colors for a uniquely colorful sweet pepper basket,” she says.

   Peppers from Heaven fruits are ready to harvest in 70 to 80 days. Best in full sun.

Gardening Trends of 2023

January 3rd, 2023

   The early 2000s were more about self-indulgence, but heading into 2023, gardeners are making a turn toward self-reliance.

A desire for privacy in the yard is a hot trend heading into 2023.

   That’s the view from Katie Dubow, president of the Chester County-based Garden Media Group, a garden-centric public-relations company that each year produces a Garden Trends Report.

   “We’re fighting to establish ourselves in a crazy, mixed-up world,” says Dubow. “We’re educating ourselves on how to create a life that represents us, meets our needs, and reduces our dependency on people and systems… We got through COVID and grew our own food. What can’t we do?”

   She and other trend-watchers see a variety of ways this outlook will take shape on the gardening front in 2023.

“Living walls”

   Maybe we got used to cocooning during the COVID pandemic… or maybe it’s a desire to create a haven from that crazy outside world.

   Either way, people more than ever are looking for privacy in the yard, says Chris Uhland, a board member of the Pennsylvania Landscape and Nursery Association and president of Harmony Hill Nursery in Downingtown, Pa.

   “With more people living in small spaces, we see them getting creative with natural screening,” he says. “Living walls, as we call them, help create privacy, block noise, and help create rooms outside.”

   This approach goes beyond stark fences and rows of conventional arborvitae into a mix of specimen upright conifers, flowering shrubs, blooming small trees, and vine-covered arbors, trellises, and walls.

Read George’s PennLive post on eight ways to add more privacy to the yard

Gardening as therapy

   An estimated 18 million Americans took up gardening during the COVID pandemic as a way to get outside, do something healthy, eat better, and/or simply improve their mindset.

   Diane Blazek, executive director of the National Garden Bureau, thinks those reasons will continue to fuel interest in gardening even as COVID fades.

   Her take: “As more people realize the health and well-being benefits that gardening provides, they will spread the word, and even more people will garden for the same reasons.”

   Blazek points out that life stresses in general cause people to seek a “safe, calming outlet, and that is the garden… be it your own balcony or back yard, or a community garden, or even your local public garden.”

   And she adds that medical professionals are increasingly encouraging gardening as a form of therapy.

In Case You Missed It…

December 20th, 2022

   2022 was another busy and eventful year on the gardening front.

These new bugs — spotted lanternflies — made a big presence in the Harrisburg area in 2022. (Credit: Penn State Extension)

   Lanternflies showed up en masse (at least in some favored areas), lots of excellent new plants debuted, and Pennsylvania banned more plants and enacted new rules that affect how we’re allowed to fertilize our lawns.

   I thought I’d close out the year by highlighting some of what I wrote about in 2022, giving you second-chance links in case you missed a post of interest.

   Here you go… and happy 2023!

On this website (free, unlimited reads):

   I start every new year with a look at what experts say are some of the hot gardening trends of the coming year. See Gardening Trends of 2022.

   I then wrote four e-columns highlighting some of the best new plants hitting the market.

Best New Vegetables, Herbs, and Fruits of 2022

Best New Annual Flowers of 2022

Best New Perennial Flowers of 2022

Best New Trees and Shrubs of 2022

   Another best-plant rundown I do every year is plants that have won awards. See Award-Winning Plants of 2022.

   And these are some of the other topics I wrote about in 2022…

How the State’s New Fertilizing Rules Affect Your Lawn Care

The Philadelphia Flower Show is going back inside for 2023.

Lanternflies: The Grownups Are Here (including a look at whether to take action or not)

Goodbye Burning Bush and Privets (more plants Pennsylvania is banning for invasivness)

Eight Weed Mistakes (things we do and don’t do to make weed problems worse than they ought to be)

Should We Be Cutting Back on Peat Moss? (some say peat moss should be banned for environmental reasons)

My Mini-Meadow… Underwhelming So Far

My Most Favorite Gardening Jobs

My Least Favorite Gardening Jobs

Three More Deer Failures (three more strategies I tried to foil the deer that didn’t work)