NEW for 2005 by Rita Pelczar

Here are the plants to look for in the coming season.

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Every January, seed and nursery catalogs brim with enticing descriptions of plants, all vying for space in your garden. Sorting through them can absorb many off-season hours as you plan dynamic ornamental combinations, non-stop flowering sequences, and bountiful vegetable harvests. But as much time as you spend selecting your seeds and plants, those hours pale by comparison to the years required to breed, trial, select, and introduce a new variety into commerce.

Each new variety begins when a plant breeder performs a deliberate cross, or when an attentive gardener or nurseryman observes a serendipitous crossing or mutation. The new variety must be grown for several generations in order for its unique traits to develop stability. The time involved ranges from several years to decades.
Andrew Tokley, horticultural manager for Thompson & Morgan, notes that it took 10 years to breed the runner bean ‘Wisley Magic’ (see above, left), an award-winning 2005 introduction. The process “is both labor intensive and expensive in man hours,” says Tokley.

Breeding time for seed-produced crops often depends upon whether it is a hybrid or not. Johnny’s Selected Seeds owner Rob Johnston explains, “Open-pollinated (non-hybrid) varieties take at least eight generations of breeding. Then we have a few seasons for field trials and for building up the supply.” Hybrid seed may take longer. “The time for developing new hybrid varieties varies with the time needed to breed the parents,” says Johnston.

In the case of ‘Bonbon’, a hybrid buttercup squash and a 2005 All-America Selections winner (see separate article on page 46) he is introducing this year, Johnston says, “Both parents of ‘Bonbon’ have a complicated ancestry that traces back to the early years of my breeding program in the 1970s, so ‘Bonbon’ is the result of over 25 years of work.”

Using existing inbred lines in new combinations can reduce breeding time, but when developing a breakthrough product—something really different—like Impatiens ‘Jungle Gold’, Ellen Leue, product group director for PanAmerican Seed, says, “We had to get in germplasm and basically ‘domesticate’ a wild species. This took 11 years, all told.”

For many plants that are vegetatively propagated, tissue culture has significantly reduced the time needed to ready new varieties for introduction. Dan Heims of Terra Nova Nurseries in Tigard, Washington, explains that with tissue culture, “the introductory period can be as quick as three years. This is down from the ‘old days’ where plants had to be increased in the fields for years.”

Before Renee Shepherd, owner of Renee’s Garden Seeds, decides which new varieties her company will offer, she goes through a multi-year process of conducting regional garden trials to compare candidates with other available varieties. “And if they’re vegetables,” she says, “we also have to cook with them.”
With this appreciation for the time, energy, and attention that goes into presenting a new variety to the gardening public, let’s take a look at some of this year’s seed and plant introductions that make the effort worthwhile.

Annuals and Tender Perennials

For your early spring garden, keep your eyes out for a new series of stock (Matthiola incana, USDA Zone 5–8, AHS Zones 8–5) called Hot Cakes, developed by Sahin of the Netherlands (http://www.sahin.nl). These exceptionally fragrant, cool season annuals are available in five different colors: white, pink, rose, blue, and red. If you miss them in spring, try them next fall.

Brighten your summer shade garden with yellow and orange impatiens (Zones 10–15, 12–1). The Fusion™ series from Ball Horticultural Company (http://www.simplybeautifulgardens.com) includes shades ranging from the soft-hued ‘Glow’, which has pale yellow blooms marked with an orange center, to the bold orange-red ‘Heat’.

New trailing petunias (Petunia 5hybrida, Zones 11, 12–1) include ‘Avalanche™ Grape’ from Bodger Seeds, Ltd. (http://www.bodger.com), and ‘Easy Wave™ Red’ from PanAmerican Seed (http://www.panamseed.com). The first is an early bloomer that grows six to eight inches tall and spreads 24 inches. Its purple flowers are marked with a dark eye. Red is a new color for the Easy Wave™ series: These blooms open a dark red and mature to a softer tone, on plants that spread 30 to 36 inches.

Renee’s Seeds obtained seed for their new larkspur Delphinium consolida ‘Parisian Pink’ (Zones 0–0, 9–1) from a grower in France. It grows three to five feet tall, with strong, well branched stems and lacy foliage. Its double rose-pink blossoms open continuously from late spring to summer and are great for both the mixed border and indoor arrangements.…

Herbaceous Perennials

The popularity of coneflowers still appears to be on the rise, if the number of new varieties is any indication. Wayside Gardens introduces Echinacea ‘Sunrise’ and ‘Sunset’ (Zones 3–9, 9–1). The fragrant yellow flowers of ‘Sunrise’ are huge—four-and-a-half to five inches across, on plants that grow 18 to 24 inches tall. ‘Sunset’ produces a spectacular flowering show—a single plant may flaunt as many as 20 four-inch flowers at once. The blooms are bright orange with russet brown cones.

Terra Nova (http://www.terranovanurseries.com) adds three new Echinacea purpurea (Zones 3–9, 9–1) selections: ‘Fancy Frills’ produces large, frilly pink flowers with multiple rows of petallike ray flowers; ‘Green Eyes’ bears magenta flowers with an indented green center that matures to an orange cone; and the soft pink flowers of ‘Hope’ are large and fragrant.

Also from Terra Nova comes Thalictrum ‘Black Stockings’ (Zones 5–8, 8–5), a six-foot-tall, back-of-the-border beauty. Its nearly black stems support ferny green leaves and fluffy, flat-topped clusters of lavender flowers.…


Photo credits: Courtesy of Ball Horticultural and Wayside Gardens

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