Award Winning New Plants at Plantarium

Every year plant breeders from around the world bring their best new plants to the Plantarium in the Netherlands. The best of the best win either bronze, silver or gold medals. With over 150 new plants being introduced, winning an award is very difficult so even those plants that receive a bronze medal are very fortunate. Here are a few of the best new plants of 2014-2015. What's your favorite?


The yellow flowered Sunny Anniversary wins a silver medal



Denny Werner's Buddleia Lo & Behold Pink Micro Chip wins a silver


Caluna 'Silvia' wins a bronze


Campsus Orangeade wins a bronze


Campsus Summer Jazz Fire wins gold

Echinacea lMooodz Shiny wins a bronze


Helenium Fuego wins a bronze


Hydrangea Miss Saori wins a bronze


Nepeta Purssian Blue wins a bronze



Tiny Wine dwarf Physocarpus wins a silver medal



Lemony Lace Sambucus wins a bronze medal to go along with it's two Far-West awards 



Bert Verhoef's All Summer Red Weigela wins a silver

A Red, Dwarf, Reblooming, Fragrant Magnolia

At one time, Carolina allspice or sweetshrub (Calycanthus floriduswas a popular garden plant. This native shrub, which occurs naturally from Ohio to Florida, was prized for it dark, maroon-red, fragrant flowers that smell of banana bubblegum. It's an adaptable, easy to grow shrub with glossy, aromatic leaves that smell like camphor when crushed. You can still find it growing in old city neighborhoods, in alleyways and around old farm houses that date back the late mid to late eighteen hundreds. 

Calycanthus floridus
You can get some idea about its historic popularity based on how often it is mentioned in books using Google's Ngram viewer. Pretty cool isn't it? I borrowed the idea from Joseph Tychonievich who used this device to chart the popularity of other garden plants. As you can see, the popularity of this shrub has been in decline for some time. 




There is nothing sweet about Calycanthus chinensisthe Chinese wax shrub. It has never been a popular garden plant. 

Calycanthus chinensis
It's not fragrant and it's too large for most suburban gardens. There are not enough book citations for it to even register on Ngram. It was only recently described by a Chinese botanist in 1963 and did not make it west until after the Cultural Revolution when seed was distributed by the Shanghai Botanical Garden. Even today this plant is rare. You'd have to visit a botanical garden to see one or go to a specialty mail order nursery to buy one.  

Calycanthus 'Hartlage Wine' is a cross between Calycanthus chinensis and our native Eastern sweetshrub - Calycanthus floridus. It was developed by Richard Hartlage while he was a student at North Carolina State University. Hartlage Wine was the first Calycanthus  hybrid to be introduced.

Calycanthus 'Aphrodite is a new hybrid with incredible, magnolia-like flowers that are as large as my hand. Aphrodite is a cross between the Asian sweetshrub (C. chinensis) and our Western native sweetshrub  Calycanthus occidentalishis is an outstanding garden and landscape plant. Its magnificent flowers appear in early summer and continue on until frost. 


Calycanthus Aphrodite

A lot of people ask about the difference between Aphrodite and Hartlage Wine.  The photograph below pretty much tells the story. The flowers of Aphrodite have a richer color, have wider petals (actually tepals: sepal-like petals) and have more yellow coloring in the center of the bloom. Aphrodite is also noted for having a nice fruity fragrance while Hartlage Wine not so much. Aphrodite is also much longer blooming than Hartlage wine and all other Calycanthus. It is pretty blooms all summer long, the blooms just keeping coming. 



The most fragrant of these hybrids is Calycanthus 'Venus'. She has a wonderful sweet melon fragrance that is simply delicious. Her large, pure white flowers are adorned with a touch of red and yellow. This hybrid contains all three of the aforementioned species. 

Venus

Most people have never heard of Calycanthus and thus, like other uncommon plant species, no one asks for them at the garden center and as a result they hard to sell. 

With the advent of these new hybrids, Calycanthus certainly deserves a second look. Or perhaps, we new to look at these plants through a whole new lens. So if I told you I had a dwarf Magnolia, with fragrant, red flowers, that never got frosted in the spring, and that bloom all summer long would you be interested? If the answer is yes, I have one, but it's called Calycanthus 'Aphrodite'.  




The Times They Are a-Changin’

“Come gather 'round people wherever you roam
and admit that the waters around you have grown
and accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you is worth savin'.

Then you better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone
for the times they are a-changin'.”  -Bob Dylan

I’m sure that Bob Dylan wasn't writing about the nursery business when he wrote these iconic lyrics, but nothing better sums up what’s going on in the world of plants and in particular the world of shrubs. Surely, the times they’re a changin'!  To illustrate this change, just get in your car and drive around some neighborhoods, both new and old, and note how the landscapes have evolved in relation to the age of the homes.  With each new generation there has been a dramatic shift in the landscape, the way plants are used and the type of plants being used.

Homeowners want more color. The yews and junipers are gone.

Color has increased; perennials and flowering shrubs have replaced yews and junipers that were once so common.  There’s been an overall increase in plant diversity; the ubiquitous crab apple and blue spruce have been replaced with a myriad of plant species. And as homes have become larger and lots smaller, people no longer have the space for big, old-fashioned shrubs.  At first glace one might jump to the conclusion that shrubs have seen their day, but in light of societal changes and new breeding efforts I believe that shrubs are actually the beginning of a renaissance.

As the Product Development Manager at Spring Meadow Nursery, my search for new plants takes me around the world, and I get to meet a wide array of professional and amateur plant breeders.  I have the rare opportunity to see what will be new four or five years before the rest of the industry. As a plant geek and horticulturist, I get excited when I see that one-of-a-kind new plant.  It’s like searching for buried treasure, but my task requires that I exercise restraint and show good judgment.  I search for plants that meet the needs homeowners.  To sort through all these new plants and to help me make sound introduction decisions, I've developed an internal plant selection criteria that helps me focus on those plants the non-horticulturists would want to buy.  We have a clear vision for shrubs, and our goal is to reinvent the way people view and use them.  Here is a sampling of what I look for when searching for new shrubs.            

Shrubs as Perennials

Shrubs are no longer just the bones of the garden
Botanically speaking, shrubs are perennials - they just happen to have woody stems, but in laymen’s terms people view perennials as herbaceous plants with colorful flowers.  Shrubs, on the other hand, have been viewed as the backbone of the garden: something green to plant in the background. This is not my view.  Plant breeders are developing new shrubs that are blurring our traditional lines of plant classification. MY MONET (Weigela f. ‘Verweig’), LO & BEHOLD® butterfly bushes, and OSO HAPPY® PETIT PINK rose are all examples of miniature shrubs that look more like perennials.  

OSO EASY® PETIT PINK rose is an award winning, hardy rose that stays very small.

Gardeners and landscapers use them like perennials in borders, decorative containers and mass plantings. While these shrubs fill the same niche as perennials, they don’t require the same level of maintenance. There is no need for deadheading, dividing, or staking.  You don’t have to cut them back in autumn or spring.  I recently read an article that described shrubs as the lazy man’s perennial, and there’s truth to that.  People complain about a lack of time in this day and age, so the future for small and miniature shrubs is very promising.

Colorful Foliage

Colorful, and interesting foliage, like you get with LEMON LACE Sambucus adds garden interest.

Some years back, I was responsible for producing over a million perennials.  The goal of the program was to provide retailers with bud and bloom perennials.  Everyone knows that perennials sell a whole lot better when they’re in bloom, but unfortunately, most only bloom for four to six weeks.  It was a very difficult task shipping all these perennials before the blooms had expired while building weekly assortments with sufficient amounts of color.  The lesson I learned was that plants with colorful foliage could be sold every week, all season long.  I could always count on Hosta, Heuchera, Artemisia, and Pulmonaria to ship every week.  These same benefits were passed on to retailers and gardeners – colorful foliage looks good all season long in the garden center and the garden. The same lesson can be applied to shrubs: shrubs with colorful foliage have a longer selling season, and when they do flower, it’s icing on the cake.  

CRÈME FRAICHE Deutzia
Over the last ten years, we have seen a wide array of new shrub introductions with attractive, colorful foliage. CRÈME FRAICHE (Deutzia gracilis ‘Mincream’), TINY WINE®  (Physocarpus o. ‘SMPOTW'’), BLACK LACE (Sambucus nigra ‘Eva’) and WINE & ROSES® (Weigela f. ‘Alexandra’) are just a few.  Again, everyone benefits from the season-long color provided by these shrubs.

Shrubs with Unique Architecture

The narrow architecture of SUNJOY® GOLD PILLAR Berberis opens up new uses in the landscape.

Some years back, I received a call from Gary Koller, a well-respected garden designer in the Boston area. Gary urged me to find and offer more shrubs with narrow, columnar growth habits. In his opinion, we needed plants with a smaller footprint that took up less space in the landscape.  He also felt these shrubs added interesting architecture to gardens.  The trend toward smaller home lots dictates the need for smaller and/or narrower shrubs.  After all, who has the space for a Spiraea x ‘Vanhouttei’ in their garden anymore?  

NORTH POLE® Thuja is a very narrow, fast growing evergreen. 

Narrower shrubs have another great benefit: they require less care and maintenance. Growers spend less time spacing and pruning them which saves them money. Homeowners also benefit from these shrubs as they save them both time and effort.  SKY POINTER® (Ilex crenata ‘Farrowone’), CASTLE WALL (Ilex x meserveae ‘Hechenstar’), FINE LINE® (Rhamnus frangula ‘Ron Williams’) and NORTH POLE® arborvitae (Thuja) are a few narrow plants that have seen increased popularity over the last few years.  I suspect this trend will continue.  

Multiple Seasons of Interest

For most people, the yard and garden space has become much too valuable for plants that only shine a few weeks of the year.  People want and expect more than three to four weeks of flowers.  Colorful foliage addresses this need quite well, but shrubs with interesting fruit and fall color fit the bill. BRANDYWINE (Viburnum nudum ‘Bulk’) is a good example of a shrub that earns its keep.  It has extremely glossy green foliage, attractive white flowers, rich burgundy red autumn foliage, and an outstanding fruit display that starts out green, changes to pink, then transforms to blue. And while the species typically requires a second cultivar to cross pollinate in order to fruit, this cultivar does not.  Its flowers are self-compatible, and thus it fruits abundantly without a pollinator.  It’s a work-horse of a shrub that gives season long pizzazz.

Flowers, fruit, form and fall color make BRANDYWINE Viburnum a plant with seasons of interest. 

Shrubs that rebloom, by their very nature, offer multiple seasons of interest.  With the success of plants like ‘Stella d’Oro’ daylily and Endless Summer® hydrangea, we have continued to look for shrubs that rebloom.  BLOOMERANG® Lilac (Syringa x. ' Penda’) starts blooming in May, rests in June, starts flowering again in July, and continues non-stop until frost. SONIC BLOOM weigela blooms and reblooms continuously without dead-heading. It just keeps on flowering! 

Superior Performance and Ease of Care

It should be noted that no matter how colorful, how sexy, or how big the flowers, everyone expects that a plant will perform.  Long gone are the days when people were willing to spray their plants to keep them healthy.  Just look at the rose market - Knock Out®, Oso Easy®, and Home Run® roses do not have the big, showy flowers of a ‘Queen Elizabeth’ rose, yet they’re in high demand because they’re easy to grow.  People want plants that are going to live – and that they can count on.  Sure there will always be die-hard gardening enthusiasts who enjoy the challenge of growing Himalayan blue poppies, but according to the National Gardening Association, 81% of the population is comprised of casual, reluctant, and non-gardeners.  It’s unfortunate, but most of these people do not know how to prune a shrub or amend soil pH, and they have no desire to learn.  If we want to sell plants to the majority of the population, we have to give them plants that are easy to grow. New shrub breeding is providing just that.

PINK HOME RUN® roses add lots of color with little effort.

The Future looks Very Bright

As you can see, plant breeders are reinventing shrubs to meet the needs of today’s growers, retailers, landscapers, and gardeners.  European breeder rights laws, as well as U.S. plant patents, have given breeders greater incentive to develop new shrubs, and the pace is quickening, but new is not necessarily better. The patent books are full of plants that no one wants.  It takes a lot more than larger flowers to be successful in today’s market.  People are demanding more.  And like Bob says, “The times they are a-changin,” and so are shrubs. In my view, they’re no longer just the bones of the garden – new shrubs are changing the way we grow, sell, garden, and landscape. The future looks very bright indeed!

Marvelous Mutant Maples

One of the first lessons I learned in horticulture was that leaves are one of the most unreliable features to identify a plant. For any particular species, cultivars can vary greatly when it comes to leaf shape. Another lesson learned was that the longer and more often a plant is cultivated, the greater the number of mutations and cultivars. The perfect example for each of these lessons is the Japanese maple, Acer palmatum. Japanese maple has been cultivated for centuries, and there are hundreds of cultivars. The leaf variation is simply marvelous. Most often these new plants originate as stem mutations that have been discovered, propagated and named, while others are discovered from chance seedlings and intentional breeding efforts. 

Acer palmatum 'Bloodgood'
One of the more commonly grown Acer palmatum cultivars in the nursery business is a hardy selection called 'Bloodgood'. Its leaves are similar to your typical Japanese maple found in nature with the exception of reddish-purple coloration instead of green. But Japanese gardeners, nurserymen and collectors have found numerous other leaf mutations, and it appears that this plant has no limits when it comes to sporting new cultivars. Here is just a small sampling of cultivars I've seen in my travels over the last year.

Acer palmatum 'Crimson Queen'

Acer palmatum 'Felice'

Acer palmatum 'Fior d'Arancio'

Acer palmatum 'Shinedeshojo'

Acer palmatum 'Osakazuki'

Acer palmatum 'Osakazuki'

Acer palmatum 'Pung Kil'

Acer palmatum 'Purple Ghost'

Acer palmatum 'Ryu Sei'

Acer palmatum 'Seiryu'

Acer palmatum 'Shaina'

Acer palmatum 'Taylor'

Acer palmatum 'Ukigumo'

Deutzia for the Garden: New and Improved

Like many ornamental plants, deutzia was not discovered in the wild, but rather as cultivated plant in Japan. Named in honor of Dutch plant hunting patron, Johann van der Deutz, deutzia was discovered, became popular and then with time fell out of favor. So it goes with many ornamental plants, their popularity ebbs and flows like the whims of fashion, just like mini skirts and big glasses become popular once again with the passing of time.

Deutzia setchuenensis


Over the last fifteen years, it has been a standing joke around our nursery that we've cornered the deutzia market, funny only because we've introduced (more correctly reintroduced) a number of beautiful Deutzia species and cultivars like Deutzia setchuenensisDeutzia ningpoensis, and Deutzia scabra, only to find out they don't sell. 
 

Deutzia x 'Magicien'


Ok, so if people don't want white-flowered deutzias, surely they'll want pink-flowered ones. We proceeded to offer 'Pink Pom Pom', 'Godsell Pink', 'Pink Minor' and 'Magicien', but only to be greeted with poor sales once again. We sold some decent numbers of Deutzia 'Magicien' but within a few years the plant ran its course and sales dropped. Over the last fifteen years, the only deutzia that had any attraction to our customers was Deutzia gracilis 'Nikko'.            

Deutzia gracilis 'Nikko'
 

Despite having white flowers, this plant built a following due to its low spreading stature that makes it a great landscape plant. It's the perfect little (2'x4') shrub for covering large areas and choking out weeds. Like many ornamental plants, it was discovered not in the wild, but in cultivation in a Japanese nursery. In 1976, John Creech and Sylvester March of the US National Arboretum found 'Nikko' at the Watanabe Nursery in Gotemba City, and the rest is history. In 1989, the Pennsylvania Horticulture Society awarded it the prestigious Gold Medal Award. Yet even with its PHS honors and useful habit, people complained, "The flowering period is too brief" and "Why can't the flowers be pink?"     

We had what we thought was a major deutzia breakthrough in 2001 when we found a variegated form of 'Nikko' in the Netherlands. At last, we had a deutzia with season long interest, but as is often the case with plant hunting, our initial excitement was unwarranted. Our new find was hopelessly unstable. Even after years of propagating the best variegated stems, the darn plant kept going back to green. As a list ditch effort, I said to our propagator, "Why don't you take cuttings off the stems with yellow leaves. Perhaps we can create a gold-leafed plant that is stable."   

 An unstable variegated selection of Deutzia gracilis

Well, like they say, "Even a blind squirrel can find a nut sometimes." Those yellow-leafed cuttings were the birth of Chardonnay Pearls® deutzia. 

Chardonnay Pearls® Deutzia

 
Mass planting of Chardonnay Pearls®  Deutzia


We introduced Chardonnay Pearls®  deutzia in 2004 and over the years it has become quite popular, especially at retail. The bright yellow leaves give the plant season long interest while the bloom time coincides with the peak garden center traffic. Finally, cornering the deutzia market was more than just a joke. For the first time, deutzia was selling!     

I never stopped looking for a stable variegated form, and I dreamed of the day we would offer a pink flowered form of 'Nikko'. In our quest for a pink 'Nikko, we enlisted the help of Dr. Tom Ranney of NC State and set him to work crossing 'Nikko' with some of the pink flowered varieties mentioned above. It was a long shot, and it would require an investment of time and money, but you have to make a start and work towards the dream. 

A few years later, we found another variegated sport of 'Nikko' in, of all places, a small Japanese nursery in the original home of 'Nikko', Gotemba City. But again, the plant was unstable. A few years later, we found yet another variegated form of 'Nikko', this time at Les Pepinieres Minier in France. This selection's margins were creamier than yellow. It was quite attractive, but it too had a reversion problem, although not nearly as bad as our previous finds. To stabilize the variegation we took only the best cuttings over successive generations. After about three years and six generations, we had a plant that was quite stable and worthy of introduction. It was christened Crème Fraiche deutzia and introduced in 2013.


Creme FraicheDeutzia


Like Chardonnay Pearls, Creme Fraiche deutzia has great retail appeal and offers season long color. The creamy-yellow variegation is attractive and blends well with other plants. On occasion, it will make a green shoot, but compared to our previous selections, this plant is fantastic. An odd shoot once in a while can be easily pricked out.  
      
Meanwhile, Dr. Ranney was making a lot of crosses, but with limited success. His early seedlings yielded plants with light pink flowers that quickly faded to white. We also tested some crosses made by the National Arboretum, but these too were more blush than pink. Then, as is often the case, we discover a new plant that had nothing to do with our breeding goals. One of Dr. Ranney's seedlings stood out from all the others, not for its pink flowers, but rather its abundance of flowers. It had so many blooms that you could hardly see its leaves. While it was not what we were looking for, it was too good to pass up. This plant was introduced in 2014 under the name Yuki Snowflake (pronounced U-Kee).      

Yuki Snowflake Deutzia


This spring, we will ship for the first time ever a 'Nikko' type deutzia with saturated pink flowers. It took Dr. Ranney ten years, from concept to introduction, but the results were worth the wait. His last round of seedlings had very good pink coloration, with many holding their color over time. After further testing, we picked the best and introduced it as Yuki Cherry Blossom.   


Yuki Cherry Blossom Deutzia


Deutzia is without a doubt is a beautiful plant. But as we discovered over the years, (while cornering the Deutzia market), the deutzia market is not all that different than the rest of the shrub market. People no longer want 12-15' tall plants. They want smaller shrubs that fit into smaller landscapes, that can be mixed in with perennials, or that look good in a patio container. They want useful shrubs that serve a function. They want more colorful flowers, and they want the season long color you get with showy foliage. So while it's great to corner the deutzia market for fifteen years straight, it a whole lot better now that we have plants that people actually want to buy. I'm so glad the joke is over.


Yuki Cherry Blossom Deutzia the first 'Nikko type with true pink flowers





  
  

Get Ready for Shrub Madness



To say I am competitive is a bit of an understatement, after all, I am the guy that nearly came to blows with my sister-in-law during a game of Monopoly. So when my Spring Meadow Nursery cohorts Shannon, Jane and Stacey told me about Shrub Madness, I was all in. 

Shrub Madness is akin to the March Madness associated with the NCAA basketball tournament, but instead of 64 basketball teams fighting to reach the Final Four, Shrub Madness pits 64 flowering shrubs against each other to reach the Floral Four. Just like March Madness you can fill out a bracket sheet and start a friendly competition in your office, garden club, garden center or with your Facebook or twitter friends. 

Click on this image to get a full sized bracket

Spanning March 3 to April 4, the basketball tournament-style bracket will move through six rounds of competition at Proven Winners Flowering Shrub Facebook page, using popular vote to determine the winner of each match. Those voting will have the opportunity to score one of five grand prizes: a collection of the last four plants standing, known as the Floral Four. Dozens of additional prizes will be awarded throughout the playoffs. 

Competing plants and their tournament seed status were determined by the Plant Selection Committee, a panel of horticultural experts with several pounds of dirt embedded under their fingernails. A mix between heavy hitters like Little Lime™ hydrangea (first seed) and underdogs like Summer Shandy™ hop (14th seed) will make for a balanced competition.

“We feel that the power conferences like hydrangeas and roses are well-represented,” said Jane Beggs-Joles, head of the selection committee.  “But there is plenty of room for upsets from the mid-major genera, and definitely the potential for a Cinderella to make a run deep into the tournament.”

Stacey Hirvela, Proven Winners ColorChoice Social Media Specialist, has insight to Facebook fan behavior and agrees that the popular vote could offer surprising results. “With over 32,000 fans weighing in on the competition, this is anyone’s game,” Hirvela said. “Time and again, our fan base has proven their love for hydrangeas, but they’re a hungry bunch. They’re a smart bunch, and they know a good plant when they see one. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if a truly garden worthy, but less-than-showy plant makes it to the latter rounds. With prizes like these at stake, all I can say for sure is the action will be non-stop, the opinions will be heated, and the championship will be well-earned.”

The first round will set the pace for the tournament, eliminating 32 shrubs in a flurry of activity. The remaining plants will compete in the second round from March 13 – 18 and then the third round from March 19 – 20. The fourth round, March 21 – 26, will determine the Floral Four, which will continue on to compete from March 27 – 30 in the fifth round. The sixth and final round to crown the champion will take place from March 31 – April 4.

So don't delay, start your bracket today. Organize an office pool, but please make it a friendly competition. There's no excuse for taking it out on your sister-in-law.