Top 10 (and 1/2!) Annuals to Check Out for 2011

This is far and away my favorite post of the year! I get to talk about all the plants that I love from last season and look forward to growing again this season. In order to be included in this list, plants must be easy to grow (no fussing with them to make them look good!), they must be vigorous growers, but not so much they are problematic and of course, they must be gorgeous. All plants listed will be available at Levi Runions Garden Center this season. Now on to my top 10 (and 1/2!) favorites I'm looking forward to using again in 2011.

1. Begonia Solenia Velvet Red

I first saw this gorgeous begonia at the lake resort my family vacations at a year before we carried it. It was hanging on the lodge deck and was full and covered with beautiful red blooms. In late August. The blooms are smaller than the Non-stop Begonias but far more plentiful. And to keep this plant looking gorgeous? Just water it. No deadheading, no pruning. Just water. Perfect! Solenia's compact mounding habit makes it ideal for hanging baskets. And the colors! They are gorgeous! Far and away, I preferred the velvet red, however, the salmon coral was stunning. Other colors include cherry red (more pink red than red velvet), dark pink, light pink and yellow. This begonia is drought and heat tolerant and will take more sun than Non-stop Begonia. And did I mention that it never stops blooming? This is a must-have plant for 2011.

2. Lantana Bandana Lemon Zest

This plant was on my list last year as one of my most anticipated plants of 2010.  It did not disappoint! Previously, yellow lantanas were of the gold variety or tended to be more white than yellow. This beauty was a true lemon yellow with just a hint of white. Most pictures I've seen show it about 50% yellow and 50% white in the flower heads. That was not my experience as mine tended to be mostly lemon yellow. Everything you expect in a lantana with a bright, fresh yellow.

3. Sweet Potato Vine Sweet Caroline Light Green/Sweetheart Light Green

I absolutely fell in love with this sweet potato vine last year and that's really saying something because I already love sweet potato vine. How could I love it anymore? I can love it more when its habit is perfect for container gardening and hanging baskets! The light green variety has a similar leaf shape as the ever popular Marguerite sweet potato vine (my favorite) while the sweetheart light green has heart shaped leaves in the same color. The difference with this sweet potato vine is that this plant is vigorous without being too vigorous. Some cultivars don't take over smaller containers the way Marguerite might but neither do they flourish enough to provide the desired effect. Sweet Caroline walks the line between these two extremes and is a great compact sweet potato vine for smaller containers. 

4. Ornamental Pepper Black Pearl and Sangria

While these two plants are both ornamental peppers, they really couldn't be more different. Black Pearl has dramatic black foliage and delicate lavender flowers that give way to roundish black fruit that mature to dark red mini peppers. The peppers are edible but very hot. This plant is gorgeous at every stage and is stunning with silver foliage plants and white and lavender flowers. On the other end of the spectrum is Sangria. This plant has glossy green leaves with small pointy fruit in red, purple and orange. It's a veritable explosion of color throughout the entire summer. It just keeps putting out colorful fruit. These peppers are also edible but very mild. Both are easy to grow and a wonderful alternative to flowers to add color and texture to the garden. 

5. Torenia Summer Wave Blue

I think Torenia has to have the cutest bloom ever so when we got trailing Torenia in I was over the moon. Summer Wave is a vigorous, continuously blooming trailing shade plant. The color of the flowers is magnificent and so is it's growth habit. This plant adds punch to shade gardens and is perfect in containers as a spiller or by itself in hanging baskets. 

6. Coleus Kingswood Torch

With so many coleus varieties out there, it's sometimes easy to get overwhelmed with all the choices. They are all pretty! Kingswood Torch stands out for it's rich and vibrant color. This coleus has a rosy red center that blends to a gorgeous coral. The leaf margins are deep burgundy-purple tipped in yellow-green. Pictures DO NOT do this plant justice. They often look just red which is not a true representation of how beautiful this plant is. It's a larger coleus (up to 36' or more) and is good alone or as the focal point in container combos. As an added bonus, this beauty will grow just fine in sun or shade. 

7. New Guinea Impatien Celebration Sunset Apricot

The flowers on this New Guinea impatien are very large even by New Guinea impatien standards and the color is breathtaking. The color is a combination of rosy pink-red that morphs to a shimmery coral orange at the margins. The dark green foliage sets off these blooms beautifully. 

7 1/2. New Guinea Paradise Painted Series

I have to admit that I've been slow to get on board with these beauties but now I am a full-fledged fan. I've made them my 7th and 1/2 choice because we've had them for a few years. The variegated foliage alone makes this plant a stunner and then it blooms those gorgeous, large New Guinea impatien blooms! The foliage varies from dark green to yellow to burgundy, pink and red depending on the cultivar. White tends to have the least variegation with simple green and yellow leaves while red is more complex with pink and orange shades in the foliage. The other colors fall somewhere in between. Gorgeous from start to finish. I particularly love this plant combined with Baby Tut and trailing Torenia for a tropical mini-garden. 

8. Ornamental Grass Blue Arrows

Looking for an alternative to the traditional spike in container combos? Blue Arrows fits the bill. Very narrow and straight grey-blue leaves grow in a compact clump up to 36" high. It gives a very similar look as the spike with a bit more interest and texture. Drought and heat tolerant, this low maintenance plant is a terrific focal point for container combos. 

9. Petunia Sanguna Atomic Blue and Blue Vein

Not only is the color of this trailing plant absolutely fantastic but its habit is perfect for hanging baskets. In addition to trailing well it has a nice mounding habit before it trails which eliminates the "flat-top" that can happen with some trailing cultivars. Also, it is vigorous but does not get crazy which means it needs less pruning throughout the season and looks less played out at the end of summer. And the blooms! They are constant! Did I say the color was absolutely fantastic? It is. Combine Atomic Blue with Blue Vein (which has the same growth habit) and the result is purely divine. 

10. Cuphea Hyssopifolia Allyson "Mexican Heather"

Not a new plant by any means but I fell in love with its charms last year. If the delicate glossy green foliage doesn't get you, the adorable lavender flowers will. It also has a unique growth habit in that it grows in an almost triangular shape. In containers, this plant stays fairly petite but might get larger when grown in the garden. It's not fussy about soil and is drought tolerant. 


Next week: Top 10 New Plants for 2011

New Container Combos for 2010

It's that time of year again when I get to do my favorite part of my job at the greenhouse. Create container combos! When they don't know what else to do with me, my bosses tell me to go make up some combos and I am only too happy to oblige. I love creating combos. The worst part is, I generally fall in love with every one I do and want to take them all home. If I did that, I could forget getting paid. Ever.

Because I need to get paid in something other than flowers (although that would be complete heaven, if not for the cost of living), I got smart this year and bought an micro SD card for my phone so I can take pictures of the combos I put together at work. I may not always remember to bring my camera, but I always have my cell phone in my back pocket (I know, low grade radiation. I will regret it massively when I have butt cheek cancer). I like the idea of having a record of what I put together. Often, it goes out the door before I can see it mature and I don't know if it works or not. And I forget what I've done. I think it will be interesting to see what I get fixated on this year as well. Last year, it was pink and yellow and blue which is weird because as colors go, pink and yellow are not my favorites. But I just couldn't stop planting pink, yellow and blue. Perhaps it was because my closest friend was pregnant and the baby thing was on my mind. She had a girl by the way.

This year, I'm able to do combos earlier and hopefully will be able to get some idea of how these turn out. As always, sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. Plants don't always cooperate and grow like they say they will. They are rebellious that way. But the trial and error is part of the fun. So here are some photos of my baby designs that don't look like much yet, but as always, I am in love with them all. I hope they grow up well.

Orange King coleus is one of my favorites although I think it's hard to combine with other plants. Often I end up including it in all foliage designs. Here I've combined it with another favorite coleus called Indian Summer and a variegated lysimachia that's basically yellow foliage with yellow flowers. Not sure why it's called variegated but what I like about it is that it's similar in color to goldi lysimachia with much larger and fleshier leaves. I love the warm color combination of this and how it ties in with the pot color. I've also combined Orange King with burgundy oxalis (the little one with yellow flowers) and goldi lysimachia. It was gorgeous. Orange King gets really large so use this in a fairly large container.

Here's a new favorite coleus, Kingswood Torch. I love the orangy-red-pink color. You'd think that color would be impossible, it is not. And it's gorgeous. I've combined it here with Genta Antique Red diascia and Sweet Caroline Sweetheart Light Green sweet potato vine. Pretty simple design yet I think this one could be gorgeous. I may hide this one so I can see it grow up.

One thing I am noticing this year in my designs is that I am tending to simplify designs to enhance one particular plant. Last year I was hella flower crazy (with the pink, yellow and blue) and this year I seem to be going for the subtle yet dramatic. We'll see how that goes. New to our greenhouse this year is Iochroma Purple Queen. I wanted to feature this plant since it's flowers are so unusual yet fairly subtle. I combined it with Breathless Euphorbia which will give it an airy look with tiny white flowers and Sidekick Black Heart sweet potato vine. The hope is that these two plants will allow the Iochroma to shine while adding texture and drama.

This is similar to a combo I did last year that I really loved. Unfortunately, I did them for specific customers and then they went right out the door so I didn't get to see how they grew up. I love the tropical look of this. I started with Baby Tut and added Painted Paradise New Guinea Impatiens in pink. If the New Guineas never bloomed this combo would still be gorgeous. In fact, I chose the Catalina Gilded Grape torenia to go with the foliage rather than the flowers. Hopefully, the pink won't look too out of place. If it does, I guess I'll just pinch them off because I think this combo is pretty much perfect right now.

I'm excited to see how these grow up. They feature a new plant for us called Violina Violas in orange. This is a trailing viola and right now, in the greenhouse, it is gorgeous. I combined them with both Baby Tut and Juncus Big Twister. I also threw in some Halloween Pansy plugs between the violas. Hopefully they won't get lost. I think the orange/black combo could be really cool, not to mention that it's the high school colors here.

I loved the way the bronze sweet potato vine looked against this simple tan planter but I didn't want it to be boring. I brightened it up with Electric Lime coleus which will get more yellow throughout the season and Genta Antique Red diascia. For a bit of whimsy I threw in a Juncus Big Twister. I might have started with tan but I think this combo will be anything but boring. I may have to hide this one, too.

Sometimes, when we have an abundance of something, my bosses will request that I use a certain plant. A lot of a certain plant. This year, we went a little overboard on the Burgundy Star Easy Wave. It's the boss-man's favorite plant. They were getting a little leggy and in need of planting so I did a series of combos you can see here, here, and here. My favorites are this one are this one with curry and tricolor sweet potato vine and this simple little diddy with Juncus Blue Arrows and bacopa. I think it's the pot that makes it work. It's just cute. It's fun to have a challenge to use something I might not otherwise choose and see how many different ways I can use it.

That's the beginning of my combos for this year. Hopefully, I'll be able to post some pictures of them as they grow so you can see what works, what doesn't and why.

Container Gardening Plants: Sweet Potato Vine

Sweet potato vine really is one of the most versatile and attractive plants to use in container gardening. It’s a vigorous grower which is a big plus in our short growing season and it comes in a variety of foliage colors and textures. Be sure to plant it with other plants of equal vigor to get the most out of this colorful foliage plant.

Sweet potato vine is an ornamental vegetable vine that does indeed grow tubers. However, they are not edible. While on the surface the tubers look similar to edible sweet potatoes, inside they are white and woody. Not poisonous, just not good. It’s still fun to dig them up in the fall though just to see how big they can get. In every container I’ve placed on soil, I’ve had the sweet potato vine grow through the drainage holes and grow tubers into the ground. Good anchor system for highly windy areas!

Sweet potato vine is grown for it’s foliage and while some flower in longer seasons, it generally will not in zone 4. There are many cultivars covering a wide range of foliage colors from chartreuse to black-burgundy. Leaf shape varies from heart-shaped to oak shaped with some lacy variations in some of the newer cultivars.

Marguerite is the most vigorous grower with heart-shaped chartreuse leaves. It blends well with most colors and brightens combinations without competing with flower color. As well as being the most vigorous, I find it to be the most compatible cultivar.

Blackie is a deep black-burgundy vine with oak shaped leaves. The leaf shape is wonderful for adding texture to a combination while the color adds drama. It blends will with pink and lighter purple shades. Some of my favorite plants to pair with this are either a plum vein petunia or Supertunia Bubblegum petunia. I love the juxtaposition of light colored flowers with the dark foliage. Stunning!

Other well-known (i.e. easy to find) cultivars include Black Heart, which has dark foliage and heart-shaped leaves and Tricolor, which has green, white and fuchsia foliage and an oak shaped leaf. Lesser known cultivars are the Sweet Caroline series which has red or bronze foliage.

New cultivars in either the Sidekick or Chillin’ lines offer these same colors and leaf shapes with a more compact growth habit. In many cases, these varieties will be better suited to smaller container gardens. However, be aware that true trailing action on these varieties won’t happen until late summer. Take this into account when you plant your combinations to get the look you want. That said, I used Sidekick Black Heart in a combo this summer and was very pleased with the result. It did vine less but was actually an advantage given the size of container that I used. It is also less likely to take over other plants.

Sweet potato vine also holds up fairly well to drought and is heat tolerant. It will wilt in extremely dry conditions but bounces back like a champ. This is a full sun plant but will grow in part sun as well. With this kind of flexibility and all the colors and textures available in sweet potato vine, chances are you’ll find one (or two, or three) that works for your container gardens.

Container Garden Idea: Creating Height

Container Trellis
Full Sun
1 Marguerite sweet potato vine
2 lavender trailing verbena
1 white bacopa*

*The picture shows two bacopa but on subsequent plantings I used just one to give all plants maximum growth space for the season.

I love the colors in this combination! And it is a combination that looks great from planting through fall. Each of the plants is a vigorous grower so does very well together. It’s also a good example of how to use an accessory in a container.

As you can see, I had a rock wall to contend with. I didn’t want the wall covered but any container I put in that area seemed too short for the space. I needed height for a good proportion. Small trellises seemed like a good solution.

But what to grow up the trellis? I tried morning glory and moon flower originally and found they didn’t do well because of the heat and sun exposure in this location. It’s on the west side on a concrete sidewalk against a rock wall, a less than ideal growing condition. I couldn’t keep those plants watered well enough to get them established. Ipomoea vines generally don’t like to be transplanted. Other vigorous vines were the just the wrong color and I am picky about color.

My original design started with the lavender verbena and the Marguerite sweet potato vine. I love chartreuse and purple shades together. I couldn’t find a vine to fit in with my scheme when someone suggested growing the sweet potato vine up the trellis rather than using it as my trailing element. Perfect solution. Marguerite is the most vigorous of the sweet potato vines and while it’s not a traditional trellis plant, it will grow upwards easily enough with just a few garden ties.

Choosing a replacement trailing plant proved much easier than finding a vine for the focal point. White bacopa is another vigorous grower that holds its own with both the verbena and the sweet potato vine. The color scheme is fairly simple with just lavender and white flowers and chartreuse foliage but I think the effect is quite stunning.

Because these three plants are such vigorous growers, they will need a larger container in order to grow well. I recommend 18" or larger. This combination also held up quite well in the extreme heat and sun conditions. In case of drought (common in my gardening style), all of these plants rebounded very well. The verbena will bloom profusely throughout the summer if deadheaded occasionally. I always took the opportunity to pinch off a few spent blooms while watering and was rewarded handsomely for this minimal effort.

Growing Art: Container Garden Design of the Week

Welcome!
Recipe: 3 ivy geranium, 3 Marguerite sweet potato vine, 1 sun coleus (24-36 inches tall)



I’ve worked on this pot for several years. It originally started in a whiskey barrel at my old house and went through several incarnations before I came up with something I was happy with. It’s my contention that it takes at least three years to come up with a combination that I really like and actually works together. Sometimes things that look good together don’t grow well together. They might have different sun requirements, water needs or fertilizer needs. One might grow faster, overshadowing another or it might just be simple user error. I put in too much of one plant and not enough of another. I just keep tweaking until I get something that works and appeals to me.

That’s what happened when I stumbled on to this mix. I had the sweet potato vine and the ivy geraniums for years. I just wasn’t getting the third plant right. I tried snapdragons, petunias and regular geraniums. It wasn’t until the larger sun coleus showed up at my garden center that I got this combination to work.

What I like about this combination is that it looks good almost immediately (this picture taken about a month after planting) and just keeps getting better and better throughout the summer. The sweet potato vine grows down to cover the pot, the coleus gets up to 3 feet tall (make sure you choose the tallest variety you can find) and the ivy geraniums bloom all summer.

The beauty of this design is in the variety of the ivy geraniums and coleus. I started with the ivy geranium because I fell in love with the Global Merlot (a beautiful burgundy flower) but you could also start with the coleus. Putting a pot together is not unlike putting an outfit together. Each plant plays off the other. Since I started with the Global Merlot, I looked for a coleus that meshed with the burgundy and also had some lime green in the leaves. This way the coleus, in addition to being the focal point of the container, ties together the geranium and the Marguerite sweet potato vine.

This container is a good example of basic container design. There is the focal point that goes up (coleus), the filler plant or spreading plant (ivy geranium), and the trailing plant (sweet potato vine). Or as I like to say, up, out, down. It doesn’t get much easier than that.