By Ken Johnson
Are you tired of growing the same varieties of plants year after year? Or maybe you’re looking for something new to grow in your garden this year? Consider growing some of the 2015 All-American Selections Winners. All-American Selections is an independent, non-profit organization that tests new varieties then introduces only the best garden performers as AAS Winners. What does it take to become an AAS Winners selection? According to their website: “Judges look for significantly improved qualities such as earliness to bloom or harvest, disease or pest tolerance, novel colors or flavors, novel flower forms, total yield, length of flowering or harvest and overall performance. In the last ten years an entry needs to have at least two significantly improved qualities to be considered by Judges for an AAS Award.”
For the first time this year flowers have been broken up into two categories those that are propagated by seed and those that are propagated vegetatively.
This year’s seed winners are:
Petunia trilogy Red F1 is a 2015 AAS Bedding Plant Award Winner. This petunia produces a rich, vibrant red bloom. They have a compact dome-shaped habit and produce large 2.5 inch upright blooms throughout the season. This variety is also heat-tolerance bounce back quickly after rain.
Salvia Summer Jewel White is also a 2015 AAS Bedding Plant Award Winner. This saliva dwarf sized and compact, reaching 10 to 24 inches tall. It produces prolific blooms throughout the summer which attract a variety of pollinators. It produces blooms almost two weeks earlier than other white salvias that were used in comparison trials.
This year’s vegetatively produced flower winners are:
Impatiens Bounce™ Pink Flame PPAF ‘Balboufink’ is a 2015 AAS Flower Award Winner. This impatiens is downy mildew resistant. They have a mounding, spreading habit and will reach 16 to 18 inches in height. They produce bright bicolor pink flowers.
Impatiens SunPatiens® Spreading Shell Pink is also a 2015 AAS Flower Award Winner. These impatiens are also downy mildew resistant. They excel in hot, humid and rainy conditions. They have a mounding habit and will grow to be over 24 inches tall. They produce 2 to 3 inch pink/coral flowers.
These plants can be found from your favorite catalog or online seed source and you may be able to find young plants from your favorite garden retailer this spring. To see a list of all of the winners dating back to 1934, visit the All-American Selections website at: http://www.aaswinners.com .
