What is New for the Garden

First, I'll tell you what is new for me - both knees. I had bilateral knee surgery in December and have spent most of the winter recovering, exercising, and generally getting back on my feet again.

We are having a mild winter here in northern Vermont and I know the lack of snow has been difficult for anyone associated with winter recreation. We covered our perennials in pots later than usual, but I still worry that they got too warm under the various layers. We shall see.

Meanwhile I am ready to start blogging again about one of my greatest pleasures - gardening.

Every year the All-American Selections competition (AAS) chooses the “best new, never-before-sold plant varieties.” Four entries with “superior garden performance” are given the AAS Award. The competition has introduced a total of 637 plants since 1933.

Some of the past AAS winning plants, like ‘Bright Lights’ swiss chard or ‘Sensation’ cosmos have gone on to become classics. Others, like ‘Harkness’ tomato and ‘Melody’ marigold have disappeared from the horticultural marketplace.

The two winning flowering plants for 2012 are salvia ‘Summer Jewel Pink’ and an ornamental pepper, ‘Black Olive.’ Normally I grow every every new AAS selection, but I’m stepping back this year.




‘Summer Jewel Pink’ (above) is the sister of ‘Summer Jewel Red’ which won the AAS award last year and I did grow that plant last summer. Perhaps it was the wet season, but its performance was underwhelming.



’Black Olive’ (above) is a decorative pepper with dark purple fruit growing along the plant’s stems. It is edible, but if I’m going to grow a showy pepper I choose ‘Super Chile’. It is very pretty and a great producer of inch long bright red hot peppers. Super Chile was an AAS winner in 1988 and it produces three times as many peppers as regular chile peppers.



The two vegetable winners are ‘Cayennetta’ peppers (above) and ‘Faerie’ watermelon. ‘Cayennetta’ pepper is a “mildly spicy pepper that is easy to grow.” This variety produces red chili peppers about 3 to 4 inches long on a compact, well branched upright plant. It is 69 days to maturity and I may be tempted to try it as a container plant.




‘Faerie’ watermelon (above) has a yellow rind with thin stripes. It yields “sweet pink-red flesh with a high sugar content and the vigorous vines spread only to 11 feet .” You can grow melons in our area, but for me they use up too much garden space for their relatively small yield.

A new concept that is turning up more and more in retail seed catalogues is the “fuseable” seed. This is when more than one seed is combined in a pellet form. Different colored coleus or petunias are often combined, and sometimes two different species are combined, like bacopa and petunias. The idea is to take the guesswork out of nice color or plant combinations.

I’ll pass for now. I’d rather create my own combinations and I also worry about one of the seeds in the pellets not germinating. It will be interesting to see how successful this new trend becomes. I will discuss more new plants the next time I blog.

Photographs of the “Big Greenhouse” April 7

I would like to post something with information for cold climate gardeners at least once a week, but I haven’t started my taxes yet (or even my greenhouse “catalog” ! ! !) so this week’s submission is simply photos taken inside the largest of the four greenhouses.



The above photo is the south side of the greenhouse. On days when it is very cold outside, but the sun is shining, I have to roll up the side to let in cooler air. For this reason right now I do not have plants flush to the side of the greenhouse. The shock of the change of temperature would do them in.



Above I am looking down the center of the greenhouse from the area where I do my transplanting.



The "shady side" of the greenhouse is the home for hanging fuchsias and six-packs of impatiens, hypoestes, etc.



Two of many seedling flats await transplanting.




'Wave' petunias


I always plant a few tomatoes early. The hanging black buckets I got at the dollar store. Danny drilled a hole in their bottoms and I have planted upside-down tomatoes for folks to try.




Here I am half-way through transplanting peppers in four-packs. I plant four different varieties in one pack, so that customers can try different plants without buying six of each.



There is some color in the greenhouse now (the white is lobularia, not alyssum) , but it will be three weeks before any customers can see it. This time of year I am always frazzled and excited at the same time.