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Some Great New Plants

Prairie Sun's botanical name is Rudbeckia hirta. It's a species that produce several other varieties of long-blooming yellow flowers that make nice cut flowers. But Prairie Sun has bloomed profusely since late July, and has, so far, not slowed down even with mid-October frosts. It doesn't flop, doesn't need staking. I have it where the soil stays relatively dry, and where it gets afternoon sunshine, but not morning sun. As you look through catalogs this winter, or make last-of-the-season visits to your local family-run garden centers, look for it. It's not too late to plant one if you find it for sale.

Another great late-season performer for me has been the hydrangea, Pink Diamond, (H. paniculata). Again, I planted it in 2005, and have been very pleased with its performance. I bought it as a standard, which is a term for a shrub that has been trained to act like a small tree, with a single stem and all the lower branches trimmed off.

The classic Pee Gee hydrangea is a New England favorite. It makes big, white, fluffy panicles (flower heads with many small blossoms) on stems that hang down in profusion. But often the panicles are so big that they break in a rainstorm, or hang down as if on strings instead of stems. What I like about the Pink Diamond hydrangea is its delicate nature. The panicles are longer, and more sparsely decorated with tiny florets. They begin white, and turn to pink as the fall progresses. Drooping on rainy days has not been a problem. And while frost turns the flowers of Pee Gees brown, Pink Diamond seems less affected.

I asked a few friends and readers if they had found any great new plants, and share a few of these with you. Penny McConnell of Norwich, Vermont, loves a variegated-leafed form of the standard thug known variously as obedient plant or false dragonhead, or by its botanical name, Physostegia virginiana. I grow it, and agree that the green and white-leafed form is a big improvement. Both forms like full sun and moist soil, but the all-green form spreads aggressively by root, sometimes becoming a nuisance, while the other does not.

The variegated form of obedient plant blooms later, after the standard form is done. For me, the all-green form blooms in August and September; the variegated form begins in September, and blooms through October. It has stiff square stems 3-4 feet tall, with small tubular pink-lavender flowers running up the stem, and blooming in sequence, from bottom to top. Its only flaw is that it tends to flop.

Marilyn Wyzga, of Hillsborough, NH, e-mailed me saying she had great luck with a flowering shrub that she purchased last year, Double File Viburnum (Viburnum plicatum tomentosum). She said it had lovely umbels of creamy white flowers and handsome sturdy leaves that turned to a fine burgundy this fall. She bought a tiny plant, but said the shrub easily grew 4 times its original size this season.

I haven't grown the double file viburnum, but viburnums in general are reliable shrubs that can be very handsome. Unfortunately, there is a new invasive beetle that selectively attacks viburnums, and I have seen complete defoliation of plants in the Burlington, Vermont area and in the town next door to me, Meriden, NH. Ask your neighbors if they've had bug troubles with viburnums. For the moment, I'm having a wait-and see before I buy any new viburnums.

Liz Krieg of Bethel, Vermont raves about a relatively new introduction, a true geranium known as Jolly Bee. It's the perennial kind, not the window box kind of geranium, which are really pelargoniums. Unlike the well known Johnson's Blue geranium, Liz says this one doesn't flop. And instead of just a few weeks of bloom in June, this new one blooms off and on all summer. She recommends shearing it back in early July to stimulate new blooms. In the fall, its leaves turn orange, red, and yellow.

Alicia Jenks of Perkinsville, Vermont, grows lots of fruit and discovered some fine varieties of raspberries that she planted last year. In early to mid-October she was harvesting Anne, a yellow fall raspberry that has great flavor. The advantage of the fall raspberries is that the Japanese beetles are gone by the time they get ready to produce fruit. The Fedco Trees catalog, part of a cooperative in Maine, sells Anne bareroot by mail. They are at www.fedcoseeds.com or call 207-873-7333 to get a catalog. They do not take phone orders.

New plants are not always what they are cracked up to be. Endless Summer hydrangea, for all the hoopla, has been an endless disappointment to me. But sometimes we get lucky, and find something that really does well. I'm always optimistic, and keep on trying.

Henry Homeyer is the VT/NH associate editor of "People, Places and Plants" magazine. Write him at gardening.guy@valley.net or P.O. Box 364, Cornish Flat, N.H. 03746.