Photos by Ball Horticultural
New for 2023, Angelonia AngelDance Fuchsia Bicolor and AngelDance Violet Bicolor thrive in heat and are deer-resistant, too.
Salvia Blue Chill’s light blue flowers combine well with the dark blue flowers of Mystic Spires.
New Orange Lava Verbena will bring dynamic orange colour to your hanging baskets or containers.
Petunia SureShot Blueberries & Cream promises non-stop blooms and colour that won’t fade.
We will garden. With early morning sunlight streaming through our windows and snow cover disappearing in the warmth of spring, each day brings us closer to planning this year’s garden. It’s too early to walk through our gardens, too soon to buy plants, but not too early for a walk through a garden centre and never too early to dream about bringing colourful new blooms to garden beds and patios. New plant introductions spark the imagination.
Duayne Friesen knows all about new plant introductions. Friesen is a Ball Seed sales representative who lives in southeast Winnipeg. A popular presenter to local garden clubs, Friesen is a former host of Lawn and Garden Journal radio show and a former garden centre manager. Recently I caught up with Friesen just prior to his departure for the California Spring Trials (CAST), an annual event where the world’s prominent breeders, growers, educators, and marketing professionals review new plant introductions and industry innovations.
Exciting colours and textures attract the attention of plant shoppers, said Friesen, but it is sustainable plant breeding innovation that is the driver for creating new varieties with desirable characteristics such as improved habit, vigor, bold colour, flowering time, and greater disease resistance without the use of growth regulators, fungicides, or pesticides. “Plant breeding has gotten so much smarter,” said Friesen. “Breeders can introduce plants quicker than they used to, but it is still five to 10 years of crossbreeding to get to where we are today.”
Here are eight brand new flowering annuals to look for this spring at your garden centre. Friesen trialed most of these in his own garden last summer and I had a chance to trial some in my garden, too.
New AngelDance Angelonia has large bicoloured blooms on strong stalks. The new series includes two colours, AngelDance Fuchsia Bicolor and AngelDance Violet Bicolor. AngelDance is a rugged performer with huge flowers, glossy scented foliage, uniform habit and flowering time. The flexible stems provide wind resistance. The AngelDance series is taller and more vigorous than Archangel Angelonia. “Mine easily grew to two feet (60 cm) and flowered nonstop right into fall,” said Friesen.
Angelonia is an underutilized annual in Manitoba, said Friesen, most likely because it gets off to a slow start in the greenhouse. This sun-loving annual has untapped potential, though, because it thrives in extreme heat, drought, and humidity and is a favourite of hummingbirds and other pollinators. Angelonia is also deer resistant. Use Angelonia AngelDance in a container by itself or as a thriller in a large mixed container garden combined with other deer-resistant annuals such as gomphrena, scaevola fan flower, and lantana.
Petunia SureShot is a new series with six colours and excellent flower power all season long. This series has been bred to rigorous standards for flowering time and matching habit so that all the varieties mix well together in containers or hanging baskets. Petunia SureShot Blueberries & Cream won accolades at plant trials across North America. “All the colours in the series are nice but SureShot Blueberries & Cream is unique,” said Friesen. “The deep purple-blue flowers with a pure white picotee edge catches the consumer’s eye and it holds its colour – it blooms right into fall with colour that won’t fade,” said Friesen. I planted SureShot Blueberries & Cream in a window box last June and the flowers with their satiny velvet appearance bloomed flawlessly into October. It has a mounded trailing habit.
Salvia Blue Chill is a new interspecific salvia with light blue flowers and dark green leaves. A tall variety (18-24 inches or 46-61 cm), Blue Chill is well-suited to landscapes or containers. “Blue Chill is slightly taller than Mystic Spires, one of the most popular salvias on the market. Mystic Spires has darker blue flowers so I can see these working really well side by side,” said Friesen. Salvia Blue Chill is a magnet for bees and butterflies and is both heat tolerant and deer resistant. I grew Salvia Blue Chill as a thriller in a large container and underplanted it with new SolarScape, the first interspecific impatiens from seed which also offers marvellous season-long performance in sun or shade and is available in a range of colours.
Verbena Lascar Orange Lava is a distinctive new verbena that brings dynamic orange colour to the garden. “Orange Lava is not an orange wanna-be, it’s not a mango-orange or scarlet orange, it is pure orange,” said Friesen. “It was an outstanding performer last year planted in the ground or pots. Some verbenas stop flowering in the heat of summer, but Orange Lava just kept blooming.” Verbena Orange Lava has a mounded, trailing habit. Friesen paired it with Osteospermum Voltage Gold, another new annual for 2023, and loved the colour combination.
Voltage Gold is the first osteospermum to bloom and has an extended bloom time. Indeed, in my garden and in Friesen’s garden, Voltage Gold flowered throughout the summer. The daisy-like flowers grow on slender but sturdy, upright stems to a height of 10-16 inches or 25-41 cm. Deer-resistant and drought tolerant, Voltage Gold is low maintenance. Plant it in full sun for best performance.
Begonia Dragon Wing White is a fantastic new begonia that delivers a huge impact and is exceptionally easy to care for. First, the flowers are not pure white but more of a white with a hint of blush on the underside of the petals that is offset by lemon yellow stamens and substantial bronze foliage. Suitable for growing in shade or sun, Friesen recommends giving Begonia Dragon Wing White a lot of sun for the best flowering performance but take care to not overwater. Dragon Wing White is drought tolerant and heat tolerant. Don’t make the mistake I did by planting Begonia Dragon Wing White in too small of a container. This is an enormous plant with an arching, pendulous habit that deserves ample room for its beautiful flower show. It is wider than it is tall: 12-15 inches (30-38 cm) tall and 15-18 inches (38-46 cm) wide. You will love Begonia Dragon Wing White.
Creating a unique pattern is one of the hallmarks of advanced flower breeding. Friesen predicts that Calibrachoa Cabaret Midnight Kiss will be a popular variety this spring. Midnight Kiss is a trailing, bicolor mini petunia with deep purple blooms that have a black throat and bright yellow star pattern. The Cabaret series is early to flower. Calibrachoa is ideal for containers and baskets but avoid planting it in the ground because it does not like our alkaline soils.
The Canna Cannova series is a versatile seed-grown series that is well suited to cooler climates. Early blooming, heat tolerant, and disease resistant, the Canna Cannova series offers nine different varieties with a height of 76-122 cm. New for this spring is Red Golden Flame and Bronze Peach. I would like to try Red Golden Flame which has saturated red flowers with bright yellow edging. Friesen said he was captivated by the peachy flower colour of Bronze Peach which also has deep dark bronze foliage.
The plant buying season can’t come soon enough.
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