New Plants For a New Year

December 30, 2024 | C.L. Fornari | Annuals

So many of our customers appreciate our large selection of Proven Winners annuals, and every year we look forward to offering their favorites and some new selections. In 2025 there will be several new plants, and I had the pleasure of planting some of them in my Cape Cod Garden last summer.

Cape Cod Fiddler **Denya LeVine** helped us to celebrate the summer annual season in the Proven Winners section.

Four Proven Winners Annuals That Are New For 2025

I combined four new annuals with three other long-time favorites in my metal troughs last year. The plants I used included the new Cuphea Totally Tempted^® Vivid Violet^™, Dahlia Virtuoso^™ Vibrant Violet^™, Heliotrope Aromagica^® Purple, and Petunia Supertunia Tiara^® Blue. I added a Papyrus Graceful Grasses^® King Tut^® in the center for height and drama, some Cuphea Vermillionaire^®to attract the hummingbirds, and a couple Petunia Supertunia^® Persimmon to echo the color of the orange Cuphea. The combination was bright and cheerful, and it made me smile all summer long.

Here is how that combination looked in late June. I had planted these just after Memorial day, using my usual combination of one part Plant-tone and one part Shake n’ Feed fertilizers. (In a container this size there was about 3/4 cup of each of these fertilizers, mixed into fresh potting mix before planting.) The *Cuphea* Totally Tempted^® Vivid Violet^™ is on the left, and the *Heliotrope* Aromagica^® Purple is on the right.

I use fresh potting mix in my containers so that the plants get off to a good, strong start by having loose soil to stretch their roots in. At the end of the season this goes into my compost pile to help enrich my vegetable and perennial gardens. I also use the combination of two fertilizers listed above, because time-release synthetic, Shake n’ Feed, is available to the plants from the start, while the organic Plant-tone kicks in later in the summer once the synthetic is about used up. I don’t use that combination for perennials or shrubs, but it’s perfect for fertilizing annuals.

This *Cuphea* Vivid Violet^™didn’t interest the hummingbirds, but the the orange *Cuphea* Vermillionaire^® continued to be a hummer magnet. I try and place a Vermillionaire^® in a container on all sides of my house so that no matter where I am walking or sitting, I have hummingbirds to look at.

When designing mixed containers, look for plants that compliment or echo each other in color, and those that contrast either in color or flower shape. In this container I had the violet Cuphea that echoed the violet Dahlia, and the Persimmon petunia that echoed the orange Cuphea. The blue petunia contrasted with those, and worked well because blue is a complimentary color to orange and it echoed the blue in the purple Heliotrope.

Some petunias flower all summer long, and others fade away in August. I found that the Supertunia Tiara^® Blue kept going into September, while the Persimmon was done by mid-August. This is nothing to stress about…like other gardens, container combinations change over the summer, with some plants coming to dominate the arrangement.

This new Heliotrope is not only beautiful, but is fragrant! When I sat on my deck in the evenings, I enjoyed the sweet perfume from these annuals. Clip off the old flowers as they go by, and that stimulates the production of new blooms.

Unlike the tall, cutting-flower dahlias that need staking, the Proven Winners plants are compact, which is perfect for containers or for planting in with perennials. My practice was to clip off the finished dahlia flowers when I watered these troughs.

Here is a photo of how this container looked in mid-August.

We would love to see some photos of the containers that you plant this year. Send them to info@countrygarden.com or to me at clfornari@countrygarden.com – let us know what you’re excited about planting in 2025.

Posted in Annuals