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| Thom Morgan |
Each year the big nurseries offer up new plants that they think
will be the next big thing in the landscaping industry, and each year I get
excited to try all of their new specimens.
For 2015, those that are considered “new” have actually been
around for a few years as trial plants in places like North Carolina State
University’s JC Raulston Arboretum. There, staffers graded the trial plants on whether
they performed as promised, and if the plants were marketable. If a plant made
the grade, it became available to you and me.
This year, we have a group of more compact and disease-resistant
forms of our old favorites.
Here is a list of the various growers that contributed and
their new specimens:
JACKSON & PERKINS: If you have roses, they probably came from
Jackson & Perkins. They usually have
several new varieties of roses each year, but for 2015 they only list Obsession Floribunda Rose as their new
offering. “Obsession” is a rich, dark red rose with many flower heads.
REGAN NURSERY: Regan
offers several roses beginning with Anna’s
Promise
Grandiflora rose.
A grandiflora has about twice the size bloom of our Mr. Lincoln hybrid teas, and Anna’s
Promise is a copper, orange-pink bloom. Other roses offered by Regan Nursery
are Top of the World (an orange
climbing rose), Best Kept Secret (a
white and pink flowered hybrid tea) and The
Lady Gardener (an English rose with a double-blossomed peach colored bloom).
MONROVIA: This nursery has a lot of new plants for 2015. One is
a Red Rhapsody Chinese Hydrangea vine,
which gets new red leaves with white flowers in the spring. The Tiny Tower Arborvitae is also new; the slow-growing
compact arborvitae will only grow 10 feet tall by five feet wide, as opposed to
the normal 20 feet tall, by eight feet wide arborvitae. Ember Waves Western Arborvitae has chartreuse foliage that turns
gold with orange tips in the winter, and will grow 20 feet tall, by eight feet
wide. Crimson Kisses Weigelia is a
compact three-foot tall, by three-foot wide weigelia with dark green foliage,
and dark red flowers. Impish Elf Pieris has
bright pink bell-shaped flowers in the spring, and the new foliage comes out
red. Monrovia doesn’t list a height, or width for this plant.
BURPEE: I received my catalogue in December, and if you like to grow
fresh vegetables, Burpee Seed supplies all the local box stores with seeds.
New for 2015 for Burpee is a Cupcake Hybrid Summer Squash. It looks just like an acorn squash, and
the taste is said to be sweet, with a soft skin. Burpee mentions a few new
tomatoes, but no varieties that would thrive in our humid piedmont summers.
Three new pepper varieties are Long Tall Sally, Blazing Banner and Big Boss Man.
A new collard for us is Tiger
Hybrid—it grows upright so it doesn’t take up as much room as the standard
collard, and is supposed to be full of flavor. Mokum Hybrid carrot looks like a Danver Long carrot, but is
supposed to stay sweet and hold up better to our warm springs.
I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to spring
and trying a few of these new plants!
Springmoor January
Focal Points:
Winter Jasmine
(Jasminum nudiflorum) has yellow flowers now, and it looks like a
low-growing forsythia. We have a few by the Wolf Fountain.
Autumn Cherry (Prunus
autumnalis) are in full bloom, and we have several around the campus. Can
you spot them?
Flowering Apricot
(Prunus mume) looks like the flowering cherry, except the blooms are coral
pink.
Lenten Rose (Helleborus
hybridus) are low-growing, shade-loving plants that bloom now through
March. Look for some around the gazebo.
January Landscaping
To-Do List:
Start a gardening journal:
Keep notes of your plant success stories and failures, dates when you
planted and harvested vegetables, and comments on how a vegetable tasted
(noting weather conditions at the time). Good journaling can keep you from
making the same mistakes every year, and improve your gardening skills.
Clean and sharpen gardening
tools and remove dirt from shovels; apply a light application of motor oil
to the steel blades to prevent rust.
Take a soil sample:
It’s important to know the nutrient content of your soil, and its pH. You can
purchase simple kits at any gardening store, or take a sample to the Agricultural
Extension office on Blue Ridge Road to be tested. Be sure to do this before spring
when they are very busy, and you will have to wait longer for your results.
Next Month: “Breaking
Bud”
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