New year, new plants
We’ve all spent the past few weeks enduring sub-zero temperatures and sharpening our Zoom skills for the virtual interactions that are our current reality, but preparing for spring plantings has helped to keep our Mariani Plants team motivated for the upcoming season. One of our favorite aspects of any new season is trialing new varieties, whether we’re testing brand new plants that have just hit the market or trying out older varieties that we’ve never grown before.
One of the new varieties in our 2021 lineup that we’re particularly eager to grow is Brunnera ‘Jack of Diamonds’. This Proven Winners® variety first caught our eye when we saw it on display in the Ball Seed trial gardens in 2019. We love Brunnera, but we usually have to limit what we can grow due to production issues; they are very sensitive to both overwatering and underwatering and tend to melt out in the heat and humidity of summer. We have received positive feedback on ‘Jack of Diamonds’ from other growers, and we are excited to try it out for ourselves to see how it holds up compared to ‘Jack Frost’. We will be trialing a limited number of ‘Jack of Diamonds’, as well as its counterpart, ‘Queen of Hearts’, this season.
Heuchera ‘Toffee Tart’ is another new PW® variety that we’re especially excited about. We were impressed by the trial plants we grew last year, and we are hoping this can become a more reliable alternative to ‘Caramel’, which is prone to root and crown rots. ‘Toffee Tart’ stays slightly shorter than ‘Caramel’, but features similarly attractive ginger caramel foliage with a silver overlay that will brighten up shady areas.
We’ve been looking forward to growing Heliopsis ‘Bleeding Hearts’ since seeing it in photos last year. A Jelitto® Perennial Seeds introduction, ‘Bleeding Hearts’ is a seed strain introduced in 2018 and is marketed as the first Heliopsis without any yellow flowers. Scarlet-red flowers age to bright orange- red and bloom from July until frost against a backdrop of deep green foliage and black flower stems. We’re always searching for varieties that offer late season interest, so we hope Heliopsis ‘Bleeding Hearts’ lives up to the hype.
Sesleria ‘Greenlee Hybrid’ isn’t a new introduction, but we’re excited to trial it nonetheless. Sesleria autumnalis is consistently one of our most popular and top-selling grasses, but faces production and propagation issues which can make it difficult to source and have in stock consistently. Neither one of these cool season grasses thrives in hot, humid summers, but ‘Greenlee Hybrid’ can be propagated at any time of the year and is said to be fast-growing, so we are hopeful that it will become a viable alternative to the slow-growing Sesleria autumnalis, which can often take all summer to develop roots.
Finally, we are confident that Miscanthus ‘Oktoberfest’ is going to be a new staple for us and a great addition to our lineup of grasses. This variety has been around for a few years and has earned a reputation for being the gold standard of Miscanthus. ‘Oktoberfest’ blooms and develops fall color earlier than older varieties with improved fall color. The fluffy, creamy white seed heads look irresistible against the backdrop of purple and red foliage and will create winter-long interest in containers or landscapes.
These are just a few of the new perennial varieties we are planting this spring for 2021 summer production, and we’re looking forward to hearing your feedback and sharing our experiences with you as we watch how they perform. We are already learning about new introductions for 2022. With so many new plants being introduced to the market each year and not enough space to grow them all, it can be difficult to choose which varieties to trial. But we’re optimistic that this exciting lineup of new plants will result in at least a few permanent additions to our catalog as we work to increase production.
