I'm not big on annuals, but when I look out and see my own lantanas blooming away in November non-stop, I begin to understand why I bother with them every spring. My usual palette is the same every year, but perhaps I should have learned the lesson of annuals when I lived in Britain, where they use many, many different ones to great effect.
I recently saw some very attractive new annuals which should be in garden centers this coming spring. Rudbeckia 'Corona' (above) is from Benary, which was founded in Germany in 1843 and is still going strong with branches in Portugal, Austria, and the United States. 'Corona,' 18" high with golden petals and a showy black center, does well in heat and full sun, and its vase life as a cut flower is said to be 8-12 days -- hard to beat that. 
Celosia 'Fresh Look Gold' is the newest in this series -- which includes Fresh Look
red, orange, yellow, and more. Red and yellow were All America Selections winners in 2004, cited for their tolerance to heat, humidity, drought or wet weather. They get about 12-18" tall and can be cut or dried for arrangements. I don't really like celosias and can't imagine them in my own garden, but as I've said many times before, plants preferences are subjective. Right gardener and right garden, they'd probably look just fine.
I'm always on the lookout for new cannas -- especially for containers -- and I really liked this white one, 'Tropical White,' from American Takii. The tropical series includes several other colors -- red, rose, salmon and yellow -- but it's not very often that you see a white canna (at least in the landscape) and the leaves on this one are a striking deep green that plays off very effectively against the bloom. FYI, 'Tropical Rose' was a 1992 AAS winner.
Takii also had some new pansies on view -- pansy x wittrockriana -- that are actually a
cross between violas and pansies. The colors were very unusual -- especially the ones in the "antique" and "mulberry" shades. Anything that gets away from purple and yellow is on my list, and these pansies produce tons of blooms, spring back quickly after freezes, and are said to last a lot longer into hot weather.
These plants were all on view at this year's Fashion in Bloom event showcasing new plants at several locations in the mid-atlantic region this past September.
(click on images for larger view)
(pansy image: American Takii)
Comments