Visits to the garden center to explore the new season’s plants might equal the excitement of arriving at a much-anticipated, never-been-to-vacation destination. Is it the newness of both activities that gets the heart thumping and ready for exploration?

Here are some of the newest, must-have perennial and annual plants for the coming outdoor gardening season. Note: This is a drop in the garden bucket when you see the plethora of plants waiting for you this spring.

Perennial plants

Joel Russell, the Colorado certified nursery professional and perennial manager and Buyer at Echter’s Nursery & Garden Center in Arvada, said “new plant introductions increase energy for the customer’s buying experience.” This year, Echter’s has 30 plants that are new to the market or new to Echter’s. Joel knows his customers and helps set them up for growing success by asking questions about where plants will be in the landscape, taking into consideration the plant’s sun and water requirements.

“Many customers want traditional hydrangeas and boxwoods, but the waterwise plants that need less water once established are very popular, and getting more so.”

Petunia Hybrida Itsy Magenta. Take container gardening to another blooming level with this small, bright magenta and superior growing petunia. (Deborah King, provided by Tagaway Gardens)
Petunia Hybrida Itsy Magenta. Take container gardening to another blooming level with this small, bright magenta and superior growing petunia. (Deborah King, provided by Tagaway Gardens)

Russell’s top perennial picks for 2024:

  • Scabiosa columbaria Giga Silver, common name Pincushion Flower. A new pincushion plant with more bloom power and size than the standard blue. Zone 5, full sun (very heat tolerant), well-drained soil, moderate watering. A touch of electric lavender outer petals with creamy white centers and dense silver foliage, 15-20 inches tall and 10-15 inches wide. Blooms spring through summer; deadhead to keep blooms coming. Deer resistant and drought tolerant once established. Works well for container gardening, borders, rock gardens, cutting. Loved by butterflies.
  • Baptisia Grape Escape, common name False Indigo. Gardeners who know baptisia know they are not only low maintenance, but also long-lived from their deep tap roots. They look wonderful both in and out of bloom with their pea-like flowers and mounding, lush foliage. Grape Escape is a plant to behold, with deep magenta petals and creamy to yellow keels (lower petals) that bloom above the dense, green foliage from late spring to summer. Zone 4, full sun to part shade, average moisture (drought tolerant once established), poor soil tolerant, deer resistant, 42 to 48 inches tall and 32 to 40 inches wide. Plant as a specimen, back of the border, use for cutting, blooms look great in a vase. Choose location carefully; baptisia does not like to be moved. Attractive to many types of bees and pollinators.

Ross Shrigley, executive director of Plant Select, is the go-to horticulture professional for knowing plants that every garden should be growing. Plant Select is Colorado’s leading brand of plants that have been tested to thrive in challenging High Plains and intermountain growing conditions. Each year, it introduces plants that can easily be identified and found in many independent garden centers. Refer to the Plant Select website for hundreds of more plants in searchable categories to match your landscape. Design ideas are available, too, along with many other helpful resources.

This new Pincushion Flower works well for container gardening, borders, rock gardens and cutting -- plus, butterflies love them. (Joel Russell, provided by Echters)
This new Pincushion Flower works well for container gardening, borders, rock gardens and cutting — plus, butterflies love them. (Joel Russell, provided by Echters)

Shrigley’s top perennial pick for 2024:

  • Teucrium Harlequin’s Silver, common name Eversilver creeping germander. To say that a groundcover has year-round appeal is big praise. Eversilver easily lives up to this status as a behaved, low-growing bright carpet of silver foliage. It blooms in early summer with pretty purple flowers and often reblooms in the fall. Take a piece of foliage and crush it for a delightful scent of what has been described as honey-pineapple. Deer and rabbits typically avoid it. Zone 5, full sun, drought tolerant once established and grows in well-drained, alkaline, rocky to sandy soils, 4 inches tall by 36 inches spread. Trim away any dead foliage each spring; otherwise no maintenance is required. Plant Everstilver in the toughest parts of the landscape — between streets and sidewalks (hellstrips), borders and rock gardens. Loved by pollinators.

Annual plants

Deborah King, annual supervisor/offsite project supervisor for Tagawa Gardens in Centennial, has one goal in mind with the scores of annual plants sold each new gardening season: “To provide a wide range for our customers as well as the very latest available in flowering plant material. Our annuals offer instant color with the changing seasons.” Deborah also sells the “best of” annual plants decided each year at the Colorado State University Annual Flower Trials. The trial program, like the Plant Select branded plants, are tried and evaluated for the top traits that gardeners want when purchasing annual plants: floriferousness, plant vigor, uniformity and ability to tolerate the tough growing conditions of the Rocky Mountain region.

King’s top annual picks for 2024:

  • Best Petunia ’23 from CSU Trials, vegetative container: Petunia Hybrida Itsy Magenta. Take container gardening to another blooming level with this small, bright magenta and superior growing petunia. It blooms so well that the spent blooms are covered easily, so deadheading may be forgotten. Also does well in cooler temperatures and part shade. Plant in containers, window boxes, beds and baskets. Blooms spring, summer and fall until frost.
  • Pelargonium Elanos Deep Pink, common name Elanos Rose Zonal Geranium. A lightly scented deep pink geranium with an upright spreading habit (14 by 14 inches) that deserves a place in mass plantings, borders, baskets and containers. Occasional trimming of faded flower heads is all that is needed; just stand back and watch it continuously bloom all season.

Resources

Plant Select: plantselect.org

CSU Annual Trials: flowertrials.colostate.edu

 

 Denver, CO - MARCH 15: Denver Post garden contributor Betty Cahill demonstrates how to properly divide and move plants for this week's DPTV gardening tutorial. Plants are divided or moved because they are overgrown, overcrowded, lack vigor or are in the wrong place. Spring is the best time to move summer and fall blooming plants. (Photo by Lindsay Pierce/The Denver Post)

By | Special to The Denver Post

Betty Cahill speaks and writes about gardening in the Rocky Mountain Region. Visit her site at http://gardenpunchlist.blogspot.com/ for even more gardening tips.