New Plants of 2023: Perennials
Here we are again, well past the halfway point of another year. It seems like only yesterday we were opening up the polyhouses and welcoming the sight of spring-blooming phlox and Hellebore flowers. Now we find ourselves preparing for fall and planning for 2024. How is it that spring and summer in our industry can be so fleeting while the days and weeks are seemingly endless? We fight so hard for every sale, but we’re so often compelled to move on to the next year before we can fully appreciate the current one. Since we finally have a moment to stop and catch our breath for the first time in months, we want to take this opportunity to reflect on some of our favorite new plants from the past year.
Hibiscus ‘Candy Crush’ was at the top of my list of new perennials this season. I loved this new addition to the Summerific® series for its bright flowers and compact, consistent form. I’ll admit that, while we trial new varieties of Hibiscus each season, I have struggled in recent years to distinguish between them all; another new Hibiscus with pink flowers and dark foliage, or red flowers and green foliage, each with a supposedly improved form. But the bright, bubblegum pink flowers of ‘Candy Crush’ are truly exceptional in a way that’s hard to describe; they stopped me in my tracks time and time again. The Crush series of Hibiscus are bred for their upright, columnar habit, and also have excellent flower coverage. In a time when so many of our customers are challenged with small yards, plants that can pack a punch in a tight space are becoming more and more desirable.
Another new Proven Winners® variety that didn’t disappoint was Astilbe ‘Dark Side of the Moon’. There was a lot of hype about this plant heading into the year, but I was skeptical – how much demand would there be for a new dark-leaved Astilbe? After all, my favorite Astilbe has long been ‘Delft Lace’, but I’ve finally accepted the fact that it’s never going to be one of our top-selling varieties – customers will always buy more ‘Deutschland’ and ‘Visions’. But ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ was an immediate hit, and it’s not hard to see why. From a grower’s standpoint, it’s a dream: plants are uniform and full just weeks after planting, and they look attractive both in and out of flower. We’re always on the lookout for plants with more than one ornamental feature that offer multiple seasons of interest, but traditional Astilbe typically flower for a very brief time and provide only a mound of green foliage for the remainder of the season. A full sun-tolerant Astilbe, ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ has uniquely dark, rich, matte foliage that’s attractive on its own but is further complemented by the purple flowers.
When first saw Brunnera ‘Frostbite’ on display at iLandscape this winter, we knew we had to try it. There’s just something about this Darwin Perennials® introduction that sets it apart from other Brunnera. Leaves are small and perfectly heart-shaped, each with a well-defined green margin that accentuates the bright silver center to create a clean, compact mound of foliage that lights up dark, shady spots.
I never thought I could be impressed by yarrow, but Achillea ‘Firefly Sunshine’ proved me wrong this year. When compared to the leggy, thin stems of ‘Moonshine’, ‘Firefly Sunshine’ is in a completely different league. It forms a dense, sturdy mound of foliage that is covered in long-lasting, bright yellow flowers in early summer and, in my opinion, renders ‘Moonshine’ obsolete.
When we added Panicum ‘Niagara Falls’ to our lineup this year, there was a part of me that thought: another new Panicum? But after growing this newest member of the Prairie Winds® collection in a #1 and a #3 pot, and seeing it in the landscape, we were all convinced that it’s a valuable addition to our grass program. The powder blue foliage has stayed clean so far, the attractive seed heads formed early, and the wide, arching habit adds a stately presence to the landscape. This is a versatile grass that would make an excellent specimen or container plant.
We trial a lot of new perennials each year. Some are disappointing and many are simply “ok”. But there are always a few that inspire and excite us – the varieties that we’re compelled to share with one another and show to our customers. And it’s that last group that reminds us why we do what we do and why plant breeding is so important to our industry. We’re excited to announce that we recently finished planting our first trial garden at Mariani Plants. We’ll be planting the newest trees, shrubs, and perennials each year and watching how they perform with minimal care, as they would in a typical landscape, so that we can share our observations with you.
We look forward to Part 2 of this series, when we’ll talk about our favorite new shrubs of 2023.
