More Enticing New Flower Introductions for 2013

In my last post a few of the many new flower seed introductions were highlighted that will be available for the 2013 gardening season. This post spotlights a sampling of the many new vegetative introductions that are available to grow this season. All are available through our plug & liner program. Clicking here will give you even more detail of the varieties below.

Vegetative Liners

• Calipetite Calibrachoas – Wow, did these turn our heads in trials this spring! Calipetite offers neat bursts of color in pots, containers, and window boxes.    

  

  Calipetite Calibrachoas

  
 
• SunPatiens® Compact Electric Orange New Guinea Impatiens – This new, high-impact color lights up SunPatiens’ 2013 line. You’ll be hearing more from me about the entire SunPatiens series during the course of the season!

  

  SunPatiens® Compact Electric Orange New Guinea Impatiens

  
• Calliope® Hot Pink Geraniums – The award-winning interspecific Calliope series welcomes three new colors, including bold Hot Pink. Superior branching fills containers quickly for a premium finish. 



Calliope® Hot Pink Geraniums


• Colorblaze® Keystone Kopper Coleuses – This new Proven Winners® sun coleus will catch your eye with its rich, deep copper foliage. It makes a great landscape coleus. Also be sure to check out its new companion Colorblaze Marooned!

  

  Colorblaze® Keystone Kopper Coleuses

  
• Petunia Ray Sunflower – It’s unique alright. Check out the dark maroon and yellow starred pattern of this conversation-starter!

  

  Petunia Ray Sunflower

  
• SuperCal® Artist Rose Petchoas – The SuperCal’s are gaining in recognition, and deservedly so. New Artist Rose provides a nice color addition to this fantastic series. You’ll be hearing more from me about the entire SuperCal series during the course of the season!

  

  SuperCal® Artist Rose Petchoas

  
• Lanai® Candy Cane Verbenas – I’ve really enjoyed the color pattern of this addition to the Lanai series. It’s performed beautifully all summer long in a hanging basket at home and put a twinkle in my eye.

  

  Lanai® Candy Cane Verbenas

  
• Pardon My Purple Monardas – This new Proven Winners® Monarda caught my attention with its nice short plant stature. It can be grown for the fronts of perennial gardens and used in mixed containers.

If you’re a home gardener, be sure to bookmark this page so you can ask for the varieties by name next spring at your local garden center!

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Posted by Harris Seeds Ornamentals at 5:12 PM

Last Day of California Spring Trials – Thursday

Last Thursday was our last day visiting the CA Spring Trials. I apologize for not blogging sooner- after all, it’s been almost a week! We returned on Friday and I’ve been in ‘catch up’ mode since then.

Anyway, Thursday was a great way to wrap up our intensive Spring Trials trip. We visited the Proven Winners group, Benary, Suntory, and The Plug Connection. All are located down in the San Diego area.

Having written a blog post about Proven Winners® just prior to our trip, I was eager to visit them to see what we could look forward to for next season, and I wasn’t disappointed. By far the most impressive 2013 intro is Calibrachoa Superbells Lemon Slice. Developed from a sport off of SB Yellow, this new addition presents a totally unique color pattern of creamy white with a bright yellow broad star. The pattern appeared, and has been confirmed, to be extremely consistent. It looked spectacular in a hanging basket. If you’re a plant junkie, then no doubt you’re familiar with Supertunia Pretty Much Picasso. Now this popular variety has a new sibling named Supertunia Picasso in Pink. Both have the very distinctive lime green margin, but while SPMP offers a lilac-rose center, SPIP’s center is more in the dark pink part of the color wheel. Perhaps more distinctive is the habit of this new intro. Everything about it is a tad tighter and more compact, creating a nice full basket or container.

  

Other highlights in the PW annuals section were a striking Lantana called Luscious Berry Blend, Lobularia (Alyssum) Blushing Princess, - a companion to the popular Snow Princess, and a very eye-catching Coleus Colorblaze Keystone Kopper.

    

PW perennials have gained diversity since Walters Gardens joined the group last year. Perennial highlights that caught my eye were a new Dianthus series – Fruit Punch, and two great looking dwarf Monarda varieties: Pardon My Pink and Pardon My Purple. I was really taken with these because of their 12” bushy, clumpy plant habit that is atypical of Monarda. Note both these varieties will need vernalization.

For more pictures of Proven Winners, be sure to visit us on Facebook. And stay tuned this Friday when I’ll finish up the Spring Trial tour with our visits to Benary, Suntory and The Plug Connection!

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Posted by Harris Seeds Ornamentals at 4:43 PM