New Plants! | Egan Gardens of Salem, Oregon

What’s new, semi-new or otherwise really great for 2012

I just love flowers. I want to put flowers everywhere in my yard. Since I have a 100% shade yard I’m always happy to find new shade plants.
Belleconia Begonias are a new series of trailing begonias which are wonderful for full shade or morning-sun/afternoon shade. Large flowers of pale pink, coral-rose or soft apricot dangle from smoothly arching, trailing plants. They’ll be available in late April.

The 2012 Perennial Plant of the Year is a shade-lover -
Jack Frost Brunnera. Jack Frost is one of my favorite plants, so I was thrilled when the rest of the Perennial Plant Assoc. members voted for it, too. Silver heart-shaped leaves with dark green veins form a thick mound 1 to 1 ½ ft high and wide. Tiny blue flowers like forget-me-nots poof in clouds over the plant in early spring. While we humans love them, no one else finds them quite as appealing – slugs and deer both dislike how the little hairs on the leaves prickle their little mouths, poor babies! Jack Frost looks beautiful with ferns, Hostas and Bleeding Hearts. Available soon.

Whitewater Acanthus is a big perennial with beautiful white-variegated foliage that will look best if protected from hot afternoon sun. A stunning specimen plant. Available soon.

Sunpatiens are a shade plant turned into a sun plant. They are similar in appearance to New Guinea impatiens, but more sturdy and vigorous than usual New Guineas, and are totally, toughly sun-tolerant. I didn’t believe it, had to test for myself (here at the nursery, where there’s sun) and it is true. No sunburn showed on leaves or flowers after a whole summer. And they will take shade fine, too. Solenia Begonias are another example of shade plants re-fitted for sun tolerance, comfortable in either situation. Both will be available in May.

Now, for you with lots of sun:
There are lots of varieties petunias. I’ve become calloused and jaded where petunias are concerned, and it takes a lot to get me at all excited. Bubblegum did a couple of years ago, and now Suncatcher Pink Lemonade has caught my eye. Soft yellow shades into salmon pink around the edges of the medium-sized flowers that open thickly across the bushy plants. They’re trailing enough for baskets, vigorous enough to go in the ground, compact enough to stay in planters. It’s the color combination, though, that makes it. Even if you’re not a yellow-lover, keep in mind that it’s the perfect complimentary color for all your purples, blues and pinks. Available in May.

Grafted tomatoes seem to be in the gardening news everywhere. It seems like a bandwagon worth jumping onto, so we will be carrying a selection of them in May. If you only have room or energy for one or two tomatoes in a sunny corner, grafted plants might be the way to go. Drawing on the vigor of wild tomato rootstock, grafted tomatoes will grow larger and produce more fruit than seed-grown tomatoes. Bear in mind that they will cost more than regular tomato plants, though.

Compact tomatoes may be what you need if even one big grafted plant is too much, because you just have a small deck and want one in a pot. We’ll have two new compact varieties this year, Husky Red and Mega Bite. Both will have full-sized fruit on container-growable sized plants. Remember, there is no tomato like a homegrown tomato. “Only two things that money can’t buy – true love and homegrown tomatoes.”

Responding to several requests last year, we’ve added lotus vine back into our production, with the new, improved Lotus Flashbulb. It will have the same soft silvery foliage as older varieties, but should be more willing to bloom its bright orange flowers.