In honor of the current scorcher of a summer, let’s take a look at some of this year’s hot new plants that are incredible performers.
Among the many new plants we’re evaluating at MSU’s Truck Crops Experiment Station, is a new ornamental sweet potato that you’ll want to grow. It will be sold by two names, Sweet Caroline Sweet Talk Light Green, and Illusion Emerald Lace.
This sweet potato has a much finer leaf texture and though it’s vigorous, it has a much more controlled growth habit. You will love it in mixed containers like this one featuring Caliente Coral Geranium and Blue Princess scaevola.
There is also a new gomphrena that will dazzle you. It’s called Fireworks. Fireworks is a tall gomphrena producing scores of hot pink flowers. Each pink flower shows off yellow flower parts that look like a firecracker.
A plant that’s not only hot in the MSU trials, but also at Mississippi’s Garden and Patio Shows is the King Tut papyrus. King Tut and the new Baby Tut have a unique texture that produces hairy tufts of green on the tops of long stems.
In this garden, they are growing behind the new SunPatiens New Guinea Imaptiens and partnered with lime green Joseph’s Coats and Blue Wave petunias. They also excel as the thriller plant in mixed containers.
Another hot seller at the garden and patio shows was the Blonde Fern. This lime green Boston fern can really light up the shady garden.
These new plants, make gardening more fun than ever. I hope you’ll give them a try whenever you see them for sale. I’m Norman Winter for Southern Gardening.