I try lots of new plants every year. It
is one of my favorite things about gardening, so I thought I'd share some of my very favorites of 2011. Not all of them new in my garden this past year,
but simply things that made an impression on me.
Beautiful, hardy mums.
I've talked about these before, and
I'll keep talking about them because I can't believe so few people
grow them. Fully winter hardy, amazing range of forms and colors.
Don't think you have to limit yourself to the boring not-very-hardy
cushion mums from the big box store, or the few hardy, daisy-form
varieties that are more widely available. Sheffield Pink and Will's
Wonderful are great, but why stop there when you can ALSO have
something like Peach Centerpiece? Get them all from Faribault Growers. Oh, and in my original post I didn't give a great review of 'Matchsticks'. Well, that was because I hadn't been patient enough. Early in their development, the flowers are okay, but once the open fully, they are stunning as seen in the image above.
Kale 'Gulag Stars'
I'm a huge fan of basically all kale,
but this beatiful and incredibly diverse mix of kales won my heart.
Actually a fascinating hybrid of different brassica species rather
than a regular kale, the result is masses of frilly, slightly spicy
leaves on robust plants I harvested from constantly the entire
summer. Any vegetable that combines easy of growth, great flavor, and
beauty is a winner in my book. As far as I know, available exclusively from Adaptive Seeds, which is a crazy cool source for crazy cool veggies you should really check out.
Salvia nutans
Previously mentioned in the blog, I
love this plant. So clearly a salvia, and yet so unlike any salvia
I've ever grown. This is my first year with if from seed (it was
completely easy to germinate and grow, by the way) and it started out
as a rosette of gloriously big, bold, textured foliage. Usually, when
a plant starts as a rosette, it stretches out dramatically into a big
leafy pillar when it flowers, but this one is different. The leaves
stay nice and compact at the bottom, and up goes a tall (almost 4
foot), slender, leafless stem topped with an utterly charming
upside-down cluster of lavender flowers. I could see this being
stunning in the front of a mixed border, the basal leaves looking
great at ground level, and the dancing flowers making a wonderful
see-through effect like the always great Verbena bonariensis. I got mine from Gardens North.
Crocus speciosus
When it comes to fall blooming
crocuses, I'd pretty much written them off several years ago when I
tried – and failed spectacularly with -- Crocus sativus, the
saffron crocus. It hates my cold, wet garden and promptly died. But
in the fall of 2010, I decided to give this group another try, and this time planted Crocus speciosus. It bloomed that first fall, which was nice,
but I more-or-less expected it to rot out in the wet of winter and
spring. To my surpise, and delight, however, it showed up happy and
more numerous in my garden this fall! The large blooms are wonderful,
and such a lovely contrast to the red and yellow tones that dominate
that time of year. I was also impressed with the length of the bloom
season – flower after flower opening for quite a few weeks. I'll
certainly be adding more to the garden in future years.
Carex buchananii
I've grown this for several years now,
and I love it more every year. People seem to love or hate it –
brown is a wonderfully strange color for a grass, and you may dismiss it
as looking dead, but I love how it sets off
other colors around it so vividly. The real surprise to me on this
species is that it is hardy. I'd grown other species of brown sedges
as annuals, so when I saw Arrowhead Alpines listing this as hardy here in zone 5 Michigan, I was stunned. They are, as always, totally correct. Sails
through every winter without a scratch. For something completely
different, tough, and care-free, give it a try.
Impatiens balfourii
Okay, full disclosure: This isn't in my
garden yet, though I've got seeds on order. I fell hard for this
little beauty at the Indianapolis Museum of Art gardens, where it was
self-sowing enthusiastically through a lovely shade garden. I'm not a
big fan of they typical Impatiens walleriana, all dumpy little lumps of flowers. This one is a completely different beast: a looser,
more natural looking habit between one and two feet, and loaded with
marvelously intricate blooms. Everything I've heard and saw in the
gardens tells me that it is perhaps an overly enthusiastic
self-sower, but the nice thing about impatients is they are soft and
easy to uproot where not needed. Hopefully my seeds will germinate
without any fuss, and I'll be able to establish them in my garden.
I'll keep you updated.
I've got more favorites coming, so stay tuned for the other things I loved last year!
