 Hot New Garden Varieties 2009
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Audio/Video Script:
Jim Robbins
Extension Horticulture Specialist
[Dr. Robbins] Well spring is here and everybody's looking for the newest, hottest plants.
And look in any catalog, [Dr. Robbins showing catalogs] or watch any commercial and you know that there's lots
of new plants out there for us to pick through for this year.
Seems like the trend, ornamental pears are out and smaller shrubs are in. So
let's go through a list of a couple of plants that you might want to check out
at your local garden center.
First of all the Glossy Abelia. [Pictures of Glossy Abelias] Lots of new introductions and again it's
primarily for a reduction in size. Just makes them a little better fit for our
smaller landscapes and some different foliage color.
Butterflybush. Buddleia. [Pictures of Butterflybushes] Still a garden favorite, but one complaint is just
been that they're rather large and rangy. The University of Arkansas has an
excellent breeding program through the efforts of Dr. John Lindstrom. And his
introduction that hit the market with a storm last year is called "Asian Moon".
It's a standard blue purple color but it's a nice medium size to the Butterflybush and the real attribute is that it is seedless, fruitless so we
don't have to worry about introducing butterfly seedlings into our garden.
Chinese Fringetree, Loropetalum, [Pictures of Chinese Fringetrees] really hit the market hard in the last
decade. Everybody wanted one. Well the push right now is to introduce smaller,
more dwarf types of the the Loropetalum, or Chinese Fringeflower to the market
place. One of these happens to be Purple Pixie.
Just as with the other plants, we're interested in finding smaller forms of
Crapemyrtles. [Pictures of Crapemyrtles] Everybody loves Crapemyrtles, but the concern is always,
"Hey I
don't have room for a tree type or one of the large shrub types." So a great
deal of effort trying to get smaller forms. In the state of Arkansas, we also have a local breeder, Bob Hambuchen in
Conway, who's introduced a number of low or very dwarf types to the market
place. One is called Orchid Cascade and the other is Rosy Carpet.
Hydrangeas continue to just captivate the market. [Pictures of Hydrangeas] Seems like every garden
magazine, every issue has a new hydrangea variety being introduced. One that
caught my attention in a recent garden magazine is called Incrediball.
[Dr. Robbins] Supposedly the head of the hydrangea is larger than certainly a basketball.
On the hervacious front, a Coneflower, [pictures of Coneflowers] we've seen a dramatic change in the
last few years from the standard purple to now there's series that have yellow,
white and orange. So the traditional Purple Coneflower, we now see some very
unique colors.
Coralbells. [Pictures of Coralbells] Traditionally Coralbells have not done very well in central and
south Arkansas because of our summer heat. But a number of breeders looked at
our native Coralbells, Heuchera, which is very heat tolerant. And it's called
Heuchera Villosa. And from that we now see a number of wonderful plants being
introduced in the market place and one of these is called Caramel. It just a
very nice soft, kind of a caramel color.
And finally, Euphorbia Diamond Frost [pictures of Euphorbia] hit the market with a storm about five
years ago. Extremely heat tolerant, very drought tolerant, excellent plant as a
filler, hanging baskets, in pots, etc. Then last year we began to see an introduction to the market called Silver
Fog and Silver Shadow. And these are new plants, very similar but a slight
change from the Diamond Frost.
[Dr. Robbins] So again this year, lots of new plants. Get out there to your local garden
center and see what's available in 2009.
[Narrator] To learn more, contact your county extension agent and follow
the links in this section.
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