We all long for exciting breakthroughs that expand the possibilities for ornamental plants in the Prairie landscape. While we’ve witnessed the loss of several ornamental breeding programs on the Prairies, there continues to be a steady stream of new cold-hardy cultivars entering the marketplace from numerous sources.
As is so often the case, a few years are required for new plants to become known in the nursery trade.
* Starlite Ornamental Crabapple is an outstanding ornamental flowering crabapple developed by Jeffries Nurseries in Portage la Prairie. It is the first green-leafed, cold-hardy cultivar for the Canadian Prairies to offer tiny, retained fruit.
Starlite offers an outstanding resistance to fireblight and apple scab that is second to none. This cultivar’s foliage remains crisp and waxy throughout the growing season. Older cultivars such as Spring Snow and Thunderchild show a very different disease profile under southern Manitoba’s humid summers.
The fruit of Starlite is best described as candy-like — similar in size and colour to the cinnamon-flavoured, heart-shaped Valentine candies. Unlike the large fruit of Shaughnessy Cohen and Thunderchild that are shed rapidly after frost, Starlite retains its fruit throughout the winter, an interesting feature in our six-month period of leaflessness, as well as providing a food source for wintering birds.
Its strikingly upright form is a characteristic that is becoming increasingly important as urban residential landscapes become further compressed. Starlite will also make an attractive, low-maintenance specimen for boulevard plantings in our towns and cities.
* Purple Spire Columnar Crabapple is a seedling from a controlled cross between Thunderchild and Wijcik, made by Dr. David Lane of the Summerland Research Station in British Columbia.
The dwarf columnar form of Wijcik has also been used in crosses with fruiting apples like McIntosh. Wijcik hybrids are slow-growing, reaching a mature height of three metres and a mature spread of one metre.
Its eye-catching dwarf, columnar habit is truly unique to rosybloom crabapples. During the winter months, its leafless branches and spurs have a gothic appearance that is sure to be noticed. This cultivar has shown reliable cold hardiness in zone 3.
Purple Spire produces a low number of pink spring flowers and correspondingly few fruit. Its purple foliage is especially obvious in spring and fall. Use as a stand-alone accent tree or plant in a row to create a delightful summer privacy screen.
* This past summer, a new plant introduction from Jeffries Nurseries received royal acclaim. During a visit to Winnipeg on July 3, Queen Elizabeth took part in the ceremonial planting of a new shrub created in her honour and called the Amber Jubilee Ninebark, named in honour of her upcoming Diamond Jubilee in 2012.
In a marketplace with many new ninebark cultivars, Amber Jubilee stands out as truly unique. It is distinct from the profusion of purple-foliaged ninebarks such as Center Glow, Coppertina, Diabolo and Summer Wine. Its golden-orange foliage is also an improvement over longtime cultivar Dart’s Gold.
Amber Jubilee offers a kaleidoscope of foliage colours throughout the spring, summer and fall. Its new growth takes on shades of yellow and orange in early summer before turning purple in the fall. Foliage on mature sections of the plant is lime-green. Annual pruning of the stem tips will cause this plant to look its best.
The lifespan of a herbaceous perennial cultivar is increasingly short-lived. New introductions are especially frequent in genera such as Hosta, Heuchera and Hemerocallis. However, very few of those new introductions come from breeding programs on the Canadian Prairies.
Over the last 10 years, Jeffries Nurseries has pursued new, cold-hardy cultivars of chrysanthemum, Coral Bells and Monarda. A recent Northern Garden introduction is a new Coral Bells known as Arctic Mist, a cold hardy, vigorous selection of coral bells with consistent mottled variegation on the foliage throughout the season. It produces plentiful, red-flowered scapes that rise above the variegated foliage.
Arctic Mist has shown excellent durability in the Prairie landscape, even under full sunshine and dry conditions. Its compact form, variegated foliage and red flowers will be of value to local gardeners.
Hardy garden chrysanthemums are a great addition to the fall landscape, flowering in early September when most perennials and annuals have stopped blooming. Power Surge is the latest in the Firecracker Chrysanthemum series from Jeffries Nurseries. It produces a sensational display of double red flowers that rejuvenate the fall garden.
Dr. Philip Ronald was educated in plant breeding and horticulture at the University of Manitoba and University of Saskatchewan. He currently manages the research and marketing programs at Jeffries Nurseries Ltd. in Portage la Prairie.
