Incredible Charm: Coral Cove Rose

Simply Delightful…

Sensationally Delicious.

Introducing new ‘Coral Cove’ Easy Elegance Roses

Image courtesy of Baily Nurseries
Copyright © Easy Elegance Roses 2008

Oh what a stunning color! Simply anyone can enjoy this beautiful little shrub rose, ‘Coral Cove’ in their yard or garden. Easy Elegance Roses are so superior in being easy to grow, they come with a 2 Year Guarantee. Be sure to save that receipt, you’ll need it if for some strange reason you have an extraordinary experience.

This is not your grandma’s rose bush!

Image courtesy of Baily Nurseries
Copyright © Easy Elegance Roses 2008

Long on charm, high on color… Coral Cove Rose is also really short on growing issues. You can’t kill an Easy Elegance Rose. Bugs won’t eat all the leaves. You won’t have icky diseases like black spot or mildew either. New selections prove their incredible pest and disease resistance just to earn a spot in the collection offered to increase the beauty of your landscaping and garden design. Shrub roses are the easiest to grow of all rose varieties and Easy Elegance is even better than that.

Coral Cove Rose bushes are compact and will be a great long blooming addition for many spots in your yard. At only 2-feet tall, they easily tuck beneath even low windows and will be fabulous as a driveway hedge that stretches all the way to the street. Very cold hardy, these new rose shrubs will be a cinch for anyone in zones 5-9 to grow. Oh, and don’t worry about having the clip of thousands of spent blooms. Shrub roses don’t need that to look great. Low maintenance and drought tolerant, once establish. Easy Elegance Roses also will easily adapt to many soils and climates.

Coral Cove blooms are a fantastic fusion of hot and pastel colors.

The outer petals and fat rosebuds appear in an pink-orange tone that can be described as persimmon. Each of the many layers of petals grow softer, becoming a whisper of coral at the yellow center. Very yummy natural confections, even while they age.

Coral Cove Rose will continue blasting out vibrant warm color from late spring right up to that first hard frost. An ever blooming selection that you won’t need to spend much time shaping. This bewitching little beauty will form a neatly rounded, dense mound all on it’s own. Leaving you tons of time to kick back and admire the scads of delicious 3 inch wide blooms.

Rosa’BAIlove’ marketed under the trade mark of ‘Coral Cove’ Rose.

Image courtesy of Baily Nurseries
Copyright © Easy Elegance Roses 2008

Look for ‘Coral Cove’ Roses where ever you see the Easy Elegance Rose Collection brand tags on display in the rose department of your local garden center or nursery.

Campanula ‘Viking’: Love at First Sight

There is something undeniably romantic about the blooming presence of old fashioned bellflowers. The blued lavender blooms of Peachleaf Bellfower are a sight to behold in early summer. And then, the magic is over. Undignified and flopping about, the common bellflower is a mess in your garden. Campanula ‘Viking’ is going to change your view of bellflowers completely. Get ready for a love affair that isn’t a flash in the pan two-week stand.

Image courtesy of Plants Nouveau
Copyright © Plants Nouveau 2009

Perennial gardens everywhere in zones 5-8 will be so much lovelier with Campanula ‘Viking’ in May through July. Fat lavender blooms erupting on very upright stems, for weeks on end. The breeding for a compact plant will be the reason that this bellflower won’t be found lolling on the soil surface. No flopping and a vastly extended flowering period. A perennial flower destined to win your heart and be awarded a prized spot in your yard or flower garden.

Do be sure to give Viking all day sun for best flowering and vigor. One of the beauties of Campanula of all types (and there are oodles of them) is that they don’t have issues with pests and diseases some perennial plants can be prone to. You won’t have any problems with it spreading like wildfire and taking over your planting space or creeping into the lawn either. Viking is very well behaved. No runners and the seed is sterile, making it no garden thug you will regret planting forever more.

Campanula Viking will do well in average garden soil, but be prepared to give it consistent moisture. Bellflowers will not reward you with great vigor in heavy clay soils; prepare a well drained planting space. With the proper foundation, you’ll find that the superior strength and vigor of this bellflower, paired with months of luscious fat purple blooms, draws interesting visitors to your garden. Hummingbirds and butterflies will be magnetized to your new stand of Campanula Viking.

You won’t be sorry for adding this perennial plant to your front foundation plantings. The compact nature will keep this perennial in great shape. At only 18 inches tall in full bloom, be sure to plant your Viking Campanula in the middle to front of your border gardens. For those who enjoy a sampling of cut flowers extending the garden to bouquets in the house, Viking is an excellent addition to your cutting garden. For cottage garden and English garden plantings, here you have a winner in plumping up the romantic theme. In your garden or landscape, this lovely and nicely mannered perennial will mature to 24 inches across.

Image courtesy of Plants Nouveau
Copyright © Plants Nouveau 2009

New to the US gardening scene for 2011, Campanula ‘Viking’ PPAF is a Plants Nouveau introduction. You can count on the discerning judgment of anything Angela presents. Plants Nouveau has strict standards in deeming a new perennial plant fit for growing. This gorgeous new bellflower is the breeding work of Arie Blom and A-B Cultivars. This is just one more phenomenal perennial flower crafted by the Netherlands breeder who brought us the Cone-fections Echinacea series. Thanks Arie!

For more information about new Campanula ‘Viking’, contact Plants Nouveau.

In the Pink for Spring

Carpeting blooms so divine,
They named them Flower of God.

Introducing Dianthus gratianopolitanus ‘St. Benedict’

Image courtesy of Intrinsic Introductions
Copyright © Intrinsic Perennial Gardens 2008

Clearly beyond pink. Just look at the brilliance of that bloom. Imagine a perennial plant forming a sliver blue carpet covered with hundreds of these scented flowers in spring. Against the uniquely blue foliage, St. Benedict Dianthus is quite an arresting show. An instant pairing of glorious color springs to mind, I can see the low sweep of these spicy little blooms in front of Gold Variegated Iris (Iris pallida ‘Aureo Variegata’).

Variegated Iris
Image courtesy of Missouri Botanical Garden.

Quite an amazing spring rock garden scene would be created with two of these perennial plants, and such a planting situation does both of them justice. St. Benedictine Dianthus, like all Cheddar Pinks, is an excellent easy to grow pink flowering perennial that forms a low mat that is a lovely color both in and out of bloom. While the silvery blue grass-like foliage is not quite as dramatic as those late spring flowers, you will find that it makes a lovely unique note amidst many greener leaved plants in the garden.

If you are wondering where the ‘Flower of God’ comes from, Dianthus is the combination of the Greek words for flower and god. We shouldn’t be surprised; the sight of Cheddar Pinks in bloom during May to June really is quite heavenly. Other forms of Dianthus are known as Sweet William and Cottage Pinks. Dianthus gratianopolitanus is a different variety than either of them and imparts a spicier scent much like cloves. The common name of Cheddar Pinks comes from their source of origination, an area known as Cheddar Gorge in southwest England where they grow in wild, natural abandon.

Image courtesy of Intrinsic Introductions
Copyright © Intrinsic Perennial Gardens 2008

For best vigor and beauty, St. Benedictine Dianthus requires excellent drainage and soil with a 6.6-7.8 pH level. If your soil is more acidic, you can bring it into the desirable balance with periodic additions of lime. You want a full sun spot for this alpine style glory of spring. The more silvered than most foliage of St. Benedictine reaches 6 inches tall and forms a 12 inch wide clump. The splendid almost beyond pink blooms appear on stems no taller than 8 inches. Blooms measure 1” wide with 4-5 serrated edge petals.

St. Benedictine Dianthus is hardy for zones 5-10 and being introduced to the world by Intrinsic Perennial Gardens. For those of you living in the deeper reaches of the hardiness zones, you will do best to give Dianthus filtered shade. St. Benedictine is really a lovely little source of early season vibrant color well worth a spot in the landscape and garden.

For professional growers seeking more information on the plant, visit Intrinsic Introductions.

Spreading Light in the Shade

Evergreen ground cover tends to be a rather boring group of plants, they are generally just green and well … creepy. Everything changes when you try running forms of Tiarella, which is semi-evergreen perennial plant.

Tiarella cordifolia ‘Ocotoraro’
Image courtesy of Plants Nouveau © 2008

The foliage of Tiarellas is always cut in very interesting shapes and marked nicely with black patterns. The new spring growth will always be a brighter, lighter green than last seasons’ or late summer color. The really stunning part about having ground cover forms of Tiarella is the light, airy blooms they produce beginning early in the spring.

In perennial gardens for shady spots, you will find both clumping and spreading forms of what is commonly known as Foam Flower. The proper name for this group of plants is Tiarella. There aren’t that many forms of spreading Tiarella that are beautiful, so the introduction of the River Series has been causing some excitement among plant collectors. Last year we featured Tiarella cordifolia ‘Delaware’. Now you can get a first hand peek at the rest of the current new releases.

From the genius breeding work of Sinclair Adam from Dunvegan Nursery in Pennsylvania, comes this wonderful selection of flowing flowering ground covers. In regions beyond zone 5, this plant may very well be perennial due to extreme winter temperatures. With good snow cover as insulation, it will not die back, but be there and nicely green when spring thaw arrives. Late frost spells will never make this flowering plant in your garden or landscaping look zapped, they adore cold weather. Frost and a late snow will do little to impair the blooming charm.

The Tiarellas in the River Series grow 4-6” high with a spread of 2-3 feet in two or three years. Unlike other evergreen groundcovers like Pachysandra and Ivy, Tiarellas are good mannered bed fellows. You won’t find this lovely flowing foliage choking the life out of your shrubs, hostas and other perennial plants. With the traditional forms of evergreen groundcovers, it is an annual to seasonal chore keeping it cut back from the life space of other plants in your landscape or garden. Pachysandra over a couple of decades can get so thick and determined; I have seen it push over ornamental fences out of the ground!

Tiarella cordifolia ‘Lehigh’
Image courtesy of Plants Nouveau © 2008

You’ll be delighted to know that once established, Tiarella plants will deal with drought quite nicely. While they will grow and fill faster with consistent moisture, a little dryness will not kill your planting off. It is best to give them loose soil that is rich in organic matter like compost that they are natives of on the forest floor. Good drainage is also important to the family of Foam Flower perennials.

Tiarella cordifolia ‘Wissahickon’
Image courtesy of Plants Nouveau © 2008

While they will in the cooler regions of the US do very nicely in some sunshine, your Tiarella plants will be lusher if they only receive morning sun. This is especially true in really hot summer areas. Some sunshine is advisable for best flowering habits. Like ferns, Tiarella is a plant that will grow in some really difficult shaded places but will perform faster with filtered or direct light in the cooler parts of the day.

Tiarella cordifolia ‘Susquehanna’
Image courtesy of Plants Nouveau © 2008

The entire River Series of Tiarella cordifolia should be easy to find for early shopping in 2010. All five plants were released to growers in 2009, making availability for this spring more prevalent. For more information, please visit Plants Nouveau.

Tall, Dark and Handsome

True red phlox? You bet!

Smoldering atop the world’s only black leafed cultivar.

Image courtesy of Plants Nouveau © 2008

Early spring leaves are the blackest of burgundy as they rise from the soil. As the leaves age and become more plentiful, each develops the arresting accent of a striking acid green stripe down the midrib.  Quite a showstopper clump of foliage it is too.

The strong stems are black burgundy from the soil line to the tips where the midsummer blooms will form. There is no other colored leaf cultivar within the Phlox paniculata plant family even though it is a vast and highly varied assortment of available perennials.

Image courtesy of Lost In The Flowers Media © 2008

He is very debonair this high society gent. At home in any garden where full sun will allow him to strut his stuff. Black tie attire completed when he pins those fire engine red flower heads to the tips of every showy stem when July is under way (zone 5).

Image courtesy of Plants Nouveau © 2008

No color rendering needs to be done when it comes to this plant or these flowers. All these photos are true to color. There is a noticeable different in hue to any other tall phlox bloom found to date. It is the truest to red of any of them.  Believed to be a natural cross between Phlox paniculata ‘The King’ and Phlox paniculata ‘Starfire’.

Starfire can only hope to claim a red bloom. Instead it is very much on the pink side of the color chart and a short plant of about 24″ in height. The theory is that the bluer tones of The King allowed the cross to produce a true red. Works well in crayons and paint the same should be true in nature.

Image courtesy of Plants Nouveau © 2008

Like any dark color foliage plant, the more sun will markedly deepen the black variegation. The intense coloring of th e stems does not fade in less sunlight. As shown in the above photo shot inside a greenhouse, the stem remains dark. No matter what lighting you grow Lord Clayton in, the stem is one tone from tip to soil.

Sporting dark dress hose all the way to the tops of his wing tips, Lord Clayton Phlox is dramatic and fetching. When he starts pumping out blooms, every woman will want him. He’s just that rakish kind of guy. You know, the one that all the girls are after. The ones who have seen Lord Clayton in full show regalia insisted that they must own him. Until now, no one else was allowed even the smallest little piece.

Your garden will never be the same.

This exclusive plant portrait is found only on Lost In The Flowers. I doubt even the most observant catalog nurseries know about Lord Clayton garden phlox yet, give them a little time as we’re sure they will catch on soon. Production for wholesale availability has only just begun. For once an arresting plant of huge appeal originated on this side of the pond. Collectors in Europe will just have to wait, as trialing is not yet completed there.

Image courtesy of Lost In The Flowers Media © 2009

The plant has been stable and reliable throughout the entire 6 years of its existence. Truly one to swoon over. Once you get a good long look at Phlox paniculata Lord Clayton you’ll be begging for him to move in at your garden too. Full sun, dry to moderate soil, hardy in zones 4 – 8 (maybe zone 3 too). Mature plant will be 40-48″ tall and up to 3′ wide.

All inquiries about the future of Lord Clayton Phlox PPAF, should be directed to Plants Nouveau who is introducing this most sophisticated plant to the world.