2025 Perennials of the Year

Introducing the 2025 Proven Winners Perennials of the Year! Learn why these high-performance perennials deserve a spot in your garden. Featured shrub: Spice Baby viburnum.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Coming to you from beautiful West Michigan and the gorgeous
Lake Michigan shoreline. Here at Studio A proven winners Color
Choice Shrubs, It's time for the Gardening Simplified Show with
Stacy Hrvella me Rick Weisten, our engineer and producer Adrianna Robinson.
Well Stacy, Today, let's talk about perennials. Unlike their short

(00:23):
lived counterparts, the annuals, perennials are typically cold, hardy plants
that come back year after year, and perennial plants, arguably
over the last ten twenty thirty years, have been extremely
popular plants, and I think in part Stacy because you

(00:44):
can dig them up and move them around your landscape
like puzzle or chest pieces, and there's so many wonderful
and fabulous cultivars we're going to talk about that.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
You know, I love what you just said there, puzzle
or chess pieces, because a puzzle is like random and
abstract and you don't know what's happening, and chess is strategic.
And I find that there are gardeners with both of
those that is well so those approaches. So whether you
are a puzzle piece perennial gardener or a chess, peace
perennial gardener. We're all about perennials.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
Today outstanding and of course perennials too. You can make
new friends. Perennials are generally moved about, are shared via
root divisions, at least most perennials that way, So you
can head out into your landscape or your garden and
split your plants. It's not embarrassing as a matter of fact,
it'll entertain your neighbors and stay see your neighbors will benefit, unless,

(01:39):
of course, you well are sharing with friends or enemies.
If you have enemies. Of course, there's stories of people
who have shared cuttings from let's say English ivy or
Lily of the Valley or snow on the mountain and
their friend has never forgotten about it.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yes, I think we had one of those people last
summer that when they got the utunia the chameleon plants, yes,
as a pass along plant. So yes, make sure if
you're taking plants from a friend, they know what they're
doing and you know what you're getting into you before
you put that in the ground.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Fortunately, so many wonderful cultivars today and proven winters. Perennials
just year after year gorgeous plants that you can enjoy
in your yard and landscape. So the envelope please on
National Plants of the Year Perennials twenty twenty five and Stacy,
we're going to start off with a Brunera Jack of

(02:36):
Diamond's heart leaf Brunera. It's Brunera macrophilla hardy and zones
three through eight. And the great thing about this one
is it has huge about ten inch leaves that overlap
dramatically at the base. I love the over lapping leaves
and I think that that's a big component. Also in

(02:58):
the development of cultivars is branching and good branching with plants.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah, for sure. It's a kind of thing that I
think the average gardener may not really notice or when
we say, like, oh, this perennial was developed for good branching,
doesn't necessarily make a big difference. But if you were
to grow that side by side with a plant that
wasn't developed for that, you can definitely notice the difference.
And you know Brunner. I say Brunner, you say Brunera.
But most people know this plant from the famous old

(03:23):
cult of our Jack Frost. So if you don't know
what we're talking about. If you think Jack Frost, Brunner
or Brunera, this is an improved, vastly improved version of
Jack Frost, with much, much bigger leaves. And I noticed
that one of the things they're also touting about it
is that the leaves kind of curl, so you say
the overlap, like at the heart, the apex of the heart,
one of the leaves curls over the other. And this

(03:46):
is great because it's a shade perennial. And you know,
it's even better about it as a shade perennials. It
is slug resistant, yes, because of the very deer resistant.
But you know, a lot of people who garden in
shade would, which I don't, so I don't really have
a lot of empathy about that myself. But you know,

(04:08):
slugs can be a huge issue in the shade. It's moist,
it's cool, it's dark, and they love that condition. So
of course, anyone who tries to grow hostas in the
shade knows about the pain of slugs. And the great
thing is, yeah, Brenara is not bothered by slugs because
it is so kind of briskly.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
Fantastic a slugfest well, and of course people would also
argue with this plant. Yeah, great, the foliage and the
veining in the foliage, but what about those beautiful baby
blue flowers, those baby blue Forget Me Not tight blossoms.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
Boy, that's attractive, right, And a lot of people do
confuse Forget Me Not with Breneray. They are closely related,
but they are not the same plant. Forget Me Not
is usually a short livedaniel and it doesn't have the
foliage impact that Brnera does. So if you love the
flowers of Forget Me Not and you want something that's
maybe not going to spread around and has a good
foliage present your garden, Brunera is your absolute go to

(05:03):
you play. Now, how do you have heartiness and heat
tolerance on this? I don't know what it is? Your shoulder?

Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yeah that's fine, that's good.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
So like that's a huge range where people can grow it.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
Yeah, so Brunnera, Brunera whatever, Just wait till we get
to Nepeta. Up next envelope, Please hosta of the Year Shadowland,
Miss America. Hosta majestic hosta that will capture your heart.
Medium green, heart shaped leaves and white centers and light
green streaking and near white flowers with a lavender pattern

(05:36):
and Stacey. There's probably some folks out there who would
say enough with the hostas already. I mean there's so many.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
You know, hastas are kind of like a little mania
unto themselves. Before many years there was like rose fanatics,
camellia fanatics, all these people who were really really into
your daylilies. And now i'd say over the past twenty
years there is become a whole new genus or group
of people hosta fanatics. People absolutely love them. And I

(06:07):
think for people like me who are hosta spectators because
again I don't have shade and I have deer, so
I can't grow. Now, I am not a host to participant.
I'm a spectator. You know. I can appreciate them in
other people's gardens, but I'd say for the average you know,
garden viewer, they start to look very similar. You kind
of say, I don't really notice that much of a difference,
whereas the hosta enthusiast is gonna, you know, go on

(06:29):
and on about all those little difference. But there is something.
First of all, I do love when it comes to hostas.
I do prefer the type like miss America here where
the margins are green and go to white in the
center over the type with the white edge and the
green center. So I do love that. But what's actually
really special about this plant, and you really have to
see this, of course we'll have pictures in the YouTube

(06:51):
version as well on Instagram and on our show notes
at Gardening Simplified on air dot com. Is the flowers. Yes, now,
the flowers on this I believe the description on the
proven Winter's website said chin height, but that of course
depends on how tall you are. But you have to
look at these pictures because they are every bit as
tall as like, you know, your average height of a

(07:14):
woman about They get to be about five feet tall. Wow,
and that is really cool. So the overall plant, you know,
proven Winters has definitely had a tendency to get these
giant size hostas, which I love. Those are fabulous like
Empress Wu and the like. And Miss America is not
in itself a huge hosta, but it has these flower scapes.
They get to be about five feet tall.

Speaker 1 (07:36):
And the flowers are important when it comes to hostas.
There are some people who would just grow hosta for
the foliage, but the blooms stacey are important for pollinators
or hummingbirds.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
The blooms are polarizing. I was thinking, I was wondering
if there was like a way that we could do
a survey because my mom hates hosta flowers. She goes
and she knocks them out because she does not like them,
or some people do. You see them as a major
ornamental factor. So if you are the non hostile flower
type and you're gonna grow Miss America, don't be so

(08:08):
fast to just knock them out. You might actually like
them when they're hovering five feet above the ground.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah, exactly, take out those blossoms. How would Arnold Schwarzenegger
put it? Hasta la vista baby?

Speaker 2 (08:23):
I think that's probably what my mom says when she
prunes him out.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
I'll be by, okay, envelope please. We have to move
on to the landscape Perennial of the Year. And I
can see why it's the landscape perennial of the year
because this is a perennial that behaves. It doesn't get
all all kinds of rangey and that sort of thing
cats me out. Nepeta. I think that this is a

(08:47):
plant that I classify as an over achiever. It really
checks the boxes. And we have to start with the
fact that Stacy, when I hear people talk about a
perennial like cats me out on Nepetta. I hear people
saying Nepetta, Nepita, Nepeita, I just throw up my hands.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
What about cat min catnans? Thank you, there's one we
can all agree on. I say Nepada. But however, you know, again,
the main point is that you walk out of the
garden center with the plant that you want, So pronunciation
is less important than spelling. But yeah, I mean nepita overall.
You know, certainly out here on the lake shore, you
go to the Grand Haven boardwalk, it's everywhere. It's blooming
all along the boardwalk all summer long.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:30):
And it's just one of those plants that you know,
when city managers and park planners can rely on something
to look this good for this long and require that
little maintenance, it's going to do the same for you
in your house. But you do need full sun. This
is definitely a full full sun plant. The other two
or shade plants, the other two perennials of the year,
but this one I would not do less than six
hours of bright sun each.

Speaker 1 (09:51):
Day, a uniform sun lover and attracts bees, hummingbirds, other pollinators,
and resists deer and rabbits.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
Doesn't attack cats, could you ask for Does it attract.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
Cats well to a degree, but cats, you know they don't.
They don't go nuts on the plant like they would
with cat and it.

Speaker 2 (10:10):
Right, so it's related but not the same things.

Speaker 1 (10:13):
Yes, exactly. We're going to talk to Kayla Olsoen from
Proven Winners in segment four. We'll talk about these award
winners for twenty twenty five the plants of the Year.
In addition new introductions you don't want to miss that
that's coming up in segment four. Coming up next in
Plants on Trial, we'll see what Stacy has on her

(10:34):
mind here on the Gardening Simplified.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
Ship, beautify your home and community with Proven Winner's Color
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(10:58):
Proven Winners color Choice dot Com. Greeting's Gardening Friends and
Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show, where we're celebrating
the twenty twenty five proven winters Perennials of the Year,
not to be confused with the Perennial Plant Association Plant
Perennial of the Year, which is a totally different plant.
The plant for this year is Picgnanthemum muticumo. That's that

(11:20):
is a mouthful also known as mountain mint. Probably not
one of the best known perennials, but one of my favorites.
It is a native perennial and a pollinator magnet. It
is one of the plants in my yard that gets
the most diversity of pollinators of anything that I grow.
It blooms late in summer, so a great time when

(11:42):
insects are starting to either migrate or go dormant, and
it is known to be Pygnanthemum is a little bit rambunctious,
but I managed to control it by keeping it very dry.

Speaker 1 (11:53):
Is rambunctious a nice way of saying invasive.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
I mean it's not invasive, like it's not going to
self so and you know, make a pest of itself.
It's relatively easy to manage, but it does form large
colonies when it is happy.

Speaker 1 (12:07):
And because it has mint.

Speaker 2 (12:09):
Yes, it is a mint relative, but it looks like
no other mint you've ever seen before. Looks very very different.
But a great plant. Just if you are having trouble
controlling it, just try to keep it drier if you can,
and then you will find yourself in my shoes where
you actually have to replace it every couple of years
because the whole plant dies out because my soul is
so dry. But it's worth it, you know.

Speaker 1 (12:29):
It's a great point. Though perennials does not necessarily mean
the plant is forever.

Speaker 2 (12:34):
That's true. Yeah, and some plants are perennials, but you
no longer have your original parent plant because it's run.
And but this isn't as show about perennials. This is
a show about shrubs and gardening. But I do have
a lot of perennials, and I do love them. And
like I was saying, when I first moved to my
house near the lake shore, I had hostas and that

(12:56):
did not last long and you know, beyond my first season.
But you know, I was willing to water stuff because
it was new. So between how dry and while drained
my soil is I have very little shade, and of
course the deer, I mean deer in hostas. It's like
deer and day lilies. You just they love them. You
just cannot grow them. But I still do appreciate them,

(13:17):
and I like when I see them growing well, because
they are very structural perennials sure, you know, compared some
perennials are maybe not so structural, but hostas, you know,
they just have this beautiful presence in the garden. And
when I was a rooftop gardener in New York, the
designer that I worked for just loved to use them.
We used them so so much, and so that's kind

(13:39):
of where I fell in love with them. And now
I've given up. But I realized thinking about sort of
the perennials of the year and how I could tie
one of the perim winters shrubs to the perennials of
the year, that you know, what they don't talk about
a lot is pairing shrubs with hostas. And that could
be because hosta growers just grow hostas. They don't have

(14:00):
space for shrubs. They're so into their hostas that they
never even bother to think about a perennial because all
their space is taken up by hostas. But as much
as hostas are beautiful plants in the summer, they totally
disappear over winter. You know, a lot of the native
perennials that I grow, they still have some nice structure.
I mean, the plant parts that are above ground are

(14:22):
dead and long gone, but I keep them so that
birds can eat the seeds. With hostas, that first frost
comes along and blam, oh they are gone, disappeared. They
are completely disappeared. So nothing persists above ground with hostas.
So if you are a hosta fanatic, that means you've
got not a whole lot to look at all winter.

(14:42):
And for that reason, I think that if you love hostas,
it really is worth considering how to pair them with
shrubs so you get some of that year round structure.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
Great points.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
And I thought long and hard about what would be
a good shrub to pair with hostas, because I think
that what makes a good pairing of any two or
given plants or groups of plants is that they kind
of you know, you can have that like shining moment
where everything is just going gangbusters, or you compare things
so that they kind of prop each other up at

(15:11):
their lowest points and so I went with the ladder
for this uh and today's plant on trial is spice
baby viburnum. Love that plant, such a great plant. So
this is a Korean spice viburnum, which some of our
listeners may be familiar with. It is also known as
Viburnum carlesii, and it it's primary characteristic of all Viburnum

(15:35):
Carly's eyes is extremely fragrant flowers in spring. Now, I
have to caution our listeners if you see a viburnum
flowering in spring, do not just run up to it
and stick your nose in it. Because some spring flowering
viburnum now unique animally houndy cat pie. There's all sorts

(15:58):
of different fragrance sense aroma's odors that they can have.
But Viburnum carlysii is a fantastic fragrance. It's sweet, it's spicy,
it's just it's really hard.

Speaker 1 (16:10):
To explain it intoxicated.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
It is intoxicating. And of course, since it's a shrub,
plants are covered and have quite a few flowers. Now,
what makes spice baby viburnum especially suitable here is that
it is about half the size of conventional Korean spice
viburnums or shorter. It reaches three and a half to
five feet tall and wide, compared to more conventional varieties,

(16:32):
which will easily get to be ten feet.

Speaker 1 (16:34):
Yeah, that's moderate for viber yes.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
Vivenums generally can get quite large. So the great thing
about this when we're talking about pairing it with hostas
or other shade perennials, is that three and a half
to five feet is going to stay much more in
scale with these lower growing perennials, So you're not going
to have something that's like, you know, ten feet tall,
and then you get these little two feet tall hostas
all around it. So the scale works well. And now

(16:59):
consider I just said this plant flowers in spring with
really nice, fragrant, white pink flowers. And at the time
when that happens, it's pretty early spring, the hostas will
either not be up or will just barely be coming up,
which is a beautiful thing. They are beautiful when they
do that, But you really can't like pile on enough

(17:21):
in spring, right, So even if your hostas are starting
to emerge, spice baby viburnum is going to be just
the right thing to kind of bring some more interest
to that area of your garden, have the fragrance, have
the color, and then as your hostess start to expand
and come into their own later in the season, the
spice baby viburnum is just going to kind of gracefully

(17:43):
seed the stage to the hostas. It looks great all season.
It has kind of a bluish green foliage with just
like the lightest coating of kind of I don't know.
I wouldn't call it fuzz necessarily, and I wouldn't call
it hairs, but it's kind of like a fuzzy, hairy
coming home to it.

Speaker 1 (17:59):
Yeah, And it comes down to texture, Stacey. It's texture.
And that's one of the things I love about hostas too,
the foliage textures.

Speaker 2 (18:08):
You know, that's a great point I didn't really think about,
like this is a great texture plant to add to
already a textural plant. Now, come fall. Many times hostas
will go dormant, you know, early, especially if it was
dry or conditions were less than ideal, or of course
if there was a frost or you know, sometimes by
the time you know, fall rolls around and your hosta

(18:29):
is just sitting there looking relentlessly summary and you're like,
all right, let's make with a fall color. Already the
seasons have changed. Spice babef viburnum is going to light
up with red and orange and yellow. Fall foliage usually
mostly red, but it kind of takes that that thing
we were talking about a few weeks ago, where it's
more light in the center and darker on the outside

(18:49):
of the plant. So it's really going to do that
heavy lifting in spring when the hostas are just going
and then bring back some great autumn seasonality in the fall,
and then that when your hostas have gone completely dormant
and disappeared and you're not even thinking about them. Since
it is a shrub, it's going to offer that nice
framework in that garden. And that's great for birds. I mean,

(19:12):
you know, anyone who has a garden right now is
noticing that their perennials aren't really doing all that much
for the birds right now. But the shrubs, the trees,
certainly perennials that persist above ground for winter, those are valuable,
really valuable for birds right now. So this is really
going to again kind of pick up the slack when
your hostas are not doing their thing. The reason that

(19:33):
you're growing up, I.

Speaker 1 (19:34):
Think your concept here, Stacey is brilliant because perennials bloom
for a season, and I'm not talking about a year.
I'm talking about generally spring or summer or fall, and
they bloom for just a certain period of time. So
to have that backup support.

Speaker 2 (19:52):
Yeah, it's fabulous and it's the kind of plant that
I think when you look at the pictures either on
our YouTube version or on our Strototick Gardening Simplified on
air dot com, you'll see it just like hostas can
just kind of nestle really nicely around the base in
between the plants. So it's just a really friendly, nice
accent to add to your garden. Now, I do have

(20:14):
to give everyone one little word of caution about Korean
spice viburnum. Like many viburnums, it is a rather slow
growing plant. So this may be one of those plants
it's going to cost a little bit more than other plants.
But again that's because when you buy a shrub, you're
buying time. You're buying the time that someone took to
grow it and raise it into a larger plant. So

(20:35):
you may have to make a little bit more of
an investment, but it's a very long lived plant. The
fragrance more than makes it worth. It pretty durable in
terms of where it will grow. It's hardy down to
USDA Zone four, heat tolerant through USDA Zone eight, so
that's a pretty good chunk of the US and Canada
where it can grow full sun to part shade. So
I know a lot of people who have Hosta gardens

(20:56):
are probably growing in relatively deep shade. It will still
row in deep shade, but you're not gonna have as
much flowers, and you're not gonna have as good a
full color. But as long as you're getting some sort
of filtered shade. Overall, we all know that viburnums are
good shrubs for the shade, and of course it is
also very dear resistant. Not that that matters to you
if you have hostas, but you know, always a nice

(21:18):
little feature to have in your back pocket there, right,
So Spice baby viburnum. It's going to be available at
your local garden center this season. Do make sure you
check it out on YouTube or on the show notes
at Gardening is simplified on air dot com, and decide
if it's going to earn a spot in your garden.
Hosta garden or not, We're gonna take a little break.
When we come back, we're answering your garden questions, so
please stay tuned. At Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs. We

(21:47):
know that a better landscape starts with a better shrub.
Our team of experts tests and evaluates all of our
flowering shrubs and evergreens for eight to ten years to
ensure they outperform what's already on the market. For easycare, liable,
beautiful shrubs to accentuate your home and express your personal style,
look for Proven Winners Shrubs in the distinctive white container

(22:07):
at your local garden center, or learn more at Proven
Winner's Color Choice dot com. Greetings gardening friends, and welcome
back to the Gardening Simplified Show. It may be January,
it may be Michigan or whatever states you're in, but
we're still answering your gardening questions because you know what
we wonder about the garden never really stops. Sometimes we're

(22:29):
just sitting at the kitchen window staring out there doing
dishes and we remember, oh, yeah, I don't know when
to prune that, or I meant to do X y
Z with that, and I don't know what to do.

Speaker 1 (22:37):
Or Like we talked about at the end of twenty
twenty four, gardeners always have something to look forward.

Speaker 2 (22:42):
That's so true, and so we invite you to send
us your gardening questions. You can just go to Gardening
Simplified on air dot com and write us there. You
can also even leave it as a comment on YouTube,
and Adriana does pass those along to us as she
is working through your comments, because we do read them,
and we really thank you for engaging with us over

(23:02):
there on YouTube. It means a lot, and you know,
we're happy to get comments as well as questions. Absolutely,
because you know a lot of us are gardeners. We
don't have like a community of gardening friends or people
just don't really you know, don't get it and you
just want to celebrate with like a like minded.

Speaker 1 (23:20):
Person, Yeah, and just share some of those thoughts. For example,
all of the people who say I say lilacs funny
and they say lilacs beautiful.

Speaker 2 (23:33):
Yes, there was quite a debate that on the on
the last YouTube I saw that, but.

Speaker 1 (23:38):
It seems like it's almost split fifty to fifty down
the middle.

Speaker 2 (23:41):
I don't know, I don't know. I say sirringa, I'll
just steer clear of the whole debate and say, sirringa.

Speaker 1 (23:49):
I'm jumping right in the pool.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
But you know, we heard from a like minded gardener
and this may be laugh I had to share it.
Our listener, Tim right with two lines. December twenty ninth,
purchased tulip bulbs for three bucks. December thirtieth planted tulip
Bulb's smiley face. Love it, Tim, you know, and people

(24:13):
have heard us say over and over again, whenever you
get them and can get them in the ground is
a fine time to do that. I don't think that
Tim is probably in Michigan because I don't know that
our soil was actually diggable on December thirtieth.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
Oh it's diggable. I worked in the garden center industry
for years, and I can recall times in late December
early January where I'm out in the backyard with a
pickaxe and a shovel and a flashlight, and I've got
one of those warm caps over my face, you all
the type people wear when they rob a bank.

Speaker 2 (24:45):
A ballaclov and yeah, there you go, gotcha.

Speaker 1 (24:48):
And you know, my neighbor drives up and is wondering
what am I doing back there? I had that once
and four weeks later that neighbor moved. We never talked,
so I think they wondered what I was doing.

Speaker 2 (25:00):
They probably thought you were like burying treasure and they
went back there and dug it up and they were like,
what the heck is this?

Speaker 1 (25:06):
But is it doable? It's doable. You may need a pickaxe.

Speaker 2 (25:11):
And you can always use contators. But no bulbs are
off the definitely off the shelves now until we get
summertime bulbs. But thank you Tim for sharing your thoughts.
As obviously a like minded fellow gardener.

Speaker 1 (25:24):
Ea writes to us high, I'm new to gardening and
really enjoy your podcast. I purchased two al Nino Chetalpa's
this past year. Am I saying that right? Stacy Chatalpa's.

Speaker 2 (25:36):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:37):
After hearing about them on your podcast, they were amazed.
See I'm I'm paranoid now about the lilac thing or lilac.

Speaker 2 (25:44):
Well, you know what I'm saying. As long as you
walk out of the garden center with the right plant,
it's no big deal.

Speaker 1 (25:49):
Thank you. And coming up in segment four, we'll talk
to Kayla Olson about napettas or nepitas or nepetas. All right,
they were amazing performers in my garden. Unfortunately, this year
we had a hurricane in September ooh, and a cold
snap not long afterwards, and they both lost all of
their leaves. They're basically stick. Should I cut them back

(26:09):
to the ground or leave them as in hopes that
spring will revive them or did the double whammy take
them out? And EA sent to photos.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
Also right, So I thought this was a great question
to answer because one of the things that I have
seen over the years answering questions that people have written
into proven winners is a lot of people who live
in milder climates or warmer climates, and I'm assuming that
EA does since they had a hurricane. Usually those tend
to be more affecting the milder climates. Is that a

(26:41):
plant that is deciduous, in other words, that loses its
leaves every year, will actually be deciduous across the board,
So it will lose its leaves even in a milder
climate like North Carolina or South Carolina or Georgia or Alabama.
That's totally normal, and so it's nothing to worry about.
Your plants are totally fine. This is an extremely durable plant.

(27:05):
It doesn't surprise me that, of course, between the wind
of the hurricane and all of the rain and then
the cold snap that it did drop its foliage. Now,
what I found in my garden with al Nino, mine
actually had green foliage on it until we got a
very very hard frost after Thanksgiving. So it was kind
of weird because my garden was all dormant and here's
a Selnino just like.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
La la la la la.

Speaker 2 (27:25):
Life is good, but it's not uncommon for it to
lose its foliage in a milder climate earlier. So you
have nothing to worry about.

Speaker 1 (27:34):
Ea.

Speaker 2 (27:34):
If you want to cut them back just to manage
their height, you certainly can. What we find in colder
climates like ours here in West Michigan with al Nino
is that sometimes a very harsh winter will knock them
back and they'll come back from the roots and still
go on to flower. But in a milder climate, this
plant is going to get quite large, so I would
not necessarily cut it back right now. Kind of see

(27:55):
what it does, but then keep that in your back pocket.
For future seasons because comes this thing is going to
be back with a vengeance. It's going to look great,
It's going to bloom, and then you can decide if
you want to manage its height in the future.

Speaker 1 (28:06):
Such a great plant. And Stacey, you inspired a lot
of people, myself included, and Jennifer who writes from Zone
six B outside of Boston about Kinsley's ghost. Such a
cool plant and the story that you shared on that
is is fabulous. And Jennifer is asking you, Stacy, about

(28:30):
growing it up a dead maple tree. I think you
mentioned we're going to do that. Yep, all right. Doing
it has the same question that I had to help
it climb, given that honeysuckles do not self cling, you know,
how do we get this done right?

Speaker 2 (28:44):
So she's basically saying like, hey, you're growing in on
a dead maple that seems too big. Well, I guess
I should have mentioned that my maple is small. My
dead maple is not an old, mature dead maple. It
is a small Norway maple that previous owners had planted.
It was really close to our property line. I also
don't particularly care for Norway maples because they don't do

(29:05):
that much, you know, in terms of contributing to wildlife
or beauty. They don't have good full color. They get
tons of tar spot. So we decided to take to
kill it by girdling it. We just took off the
We actually cut a ridge into the base of the plant,
and now we use it for our birdhouse and you know,
birds perch, and it actually just had a Cooper's hawk
perching in it last weekend, which is pretty amazing. So

(29:27):
I would say the diameter of the maple that I'm
growing it on is maybe four to five inches, so
it's certainly narrow, small enough, you know, like just like
about this small enough for the honeysuckle to climb up
on its own. But now if you did want to
grow it on a thicker plant, you can certainly make

(29:48):
some concessions. I've seen people do anything from you know,
putting on screws and creating some sort of kind of trellis.
Some people will just like lean a trellis fishing line.
There's lots of things that you can do. But you
are correct, Jennifer. It does not self clan. It does
need to twine around, but as long as you can
provide something for it to do that, it will be

(30:09):
just fine and it will find its way around and
become a beautiful specimen. So my apologies for the confusion there,
but growing it around a small tree would be no
problem at all.

Speaker 1 (30:19):
You know, one thing I've often done is after Christmas,
I've taken the old Christmas tree the cut Christmas tree
and moved it outside in my landscape. I've stuck them
in the ground with hopes that it would root and grow.
Never has happened.

Speaker 2 (30:35):
That would be amazing. You'd have to be calling Ripley's
believe it or not if they're still around.

Speaker 1 (30:42):
But essentially I do it for the birds in the
winter time, providing cover as they dart back and forth
from the bird feeder. Stacey and anyhow to make a
lawn story short. What I do is I plant as
the needles fall off, morning glories at the base. Cool.
Love that, So there you go.

Speaker 2 (31:02):
So Joni asks a great question, how do you care
for a standard rose? I purchased a Julia Child standard
in the summer of twenty twenty four. How do I
keep it? Do I keep it staked? How do I
trim it? When do I fertilize, et cetera. Now, Julia
Child is such a fabulous rose. Julia Child personally picked
it to be named for her. It's yellow, has the
most gorgeous fragrance, it's very disease resistant, it is reblooming.

(31:26):
It was kind of like the og disease resistant landscape rose,
even though it's actually more of a hybrid tea. So
very jealous, beautiful plant and a standard rose. A standard
is the technical term for a tree rose. So roses
naturally are multi stem shrubs. They want to kind of grow.
They sometimes have weak stems, sometimes have strong stems, depending
on the species, and some growers will train them specifically

(31:48):
to take on this tree form where they have almost
like a trunk and then the canopy of the rose
on top. Now that happens with hydrangeas too, but hydrangels
are much sturdier and much woodier and don't as much training,
whereas a rose standard for the most part, for most
of us in the US especially, are unlikely to be
able to grow without a steak. Wouldn't you agree?

Speaker 1 (32:09):
I would agree?

Speaker 2 (32:10):
Yeah, So I would say keep it staked, and whether
or not the steak that the grower sends it with
is sufficient for its long term sustainability, I can't say,
but it does. You're going to want to have it
on a pretty good steak, and I think like a
one by one wooden steak is fine. If you just
google standard roses or tree form roses, you'll see lots
of different solutions out there. So this is a plan

(32:31):
that you do need to keep steaks, but not guy
wired like a tree. Just you know, steak it next
to it and then prune it in spring like you
would any other rose, which is to say that you're
going to be looking at where those buds are starting
to come out, and you're going to be cutting back
to where there is a nice thick bud coming out.
Because the thicker the bud you come up, prune back

(32:52):
to the thicker and more vigorous the growth that comes
from it will be For roses. You know, you can
fertilize just once year in early spring with a rose fertilizer.
Both Rick and I like Ispoma. Rose Tone is kind
of a general purpose rose and shrub fertilizer, but you
can use whatever you have. You can also fertilize monthly
through late July if you want to. It's not necessary.

(33:15):
Once should be fine. You could also even do a
second one in June just before it's about to bloom
to give it that extra oof. But overall, yeah, your
biggest challenges are going to be making sure that the canopy,
so to speak, stays in proportion with the trunk, and
then that trunk stays nice and sturdy and staked, because
if anything happens to that, you will lose your standard rose.
And as with many plants that are grown as standards,

(33:38):
it is a big investment. So you do need to
be careful and preserve your investment, but enjoy what a
fabulous choice mistakes are. Indeed, we're going to take a
break and when we come back, we've got Kayla Olsen
from proofo Wwinner's Perennials, so please stay tuned. Thanks for
listening to the Gardening Simplified Podcast, brought to you by

(34:00):
Proven Winners Color Choice Shrubs. Our award winning flowering shrubs
and evergreens are trialed and tested by experts with your
success in mind. Learn more at Proven winnerscolor Choice dot com.

Speaker 1 (34:12):
Welcome back to the Gardening Simplified Show. Today in branching News,
we'll chat with Kayla Olsen with Proven Winners Perennials. Kayla Olsen,
Proven Winners Perennials, Regional product manager for the Central US
and Kayla, thanks for joining us on the Gardening Simplified Show.

Speaker 3 (34:31):
Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (34:33):
This is an exciting time of the year to look
forward to Spring twenty twenty five, and in our first segment,
we talked about the national Plants of the Year and
wanted to get a comment from you on these plants.
Let's start with Jack of Diamond's heartleaf brunera. What's your
feelings on that plant? It's Perennial of the year.

Speaker 3 (34:57):
You know, it is one of my favorite ground covers,
and that's because it has such big leaves. I think
when we think of groundcovers, we always think of small
textured plants, but this one really has quite a large presence.
While the plant itself doesn't get more than you know,
sixteen inches tall, the plant leaves are what's really so

(35:19):
interesting about this, with that scallop that kind of curl,
so you get a ton of texture not only in
the vein nation, but in the leaf itself.

Speaker 1 (35:29):
It's a beautiful perennial of the year. How about Hosta
of the Year, Shadowland Miss America hostile. What really strikes
you about this hosta introduction?

Speaker 3 (35:40):
You know, the Shadowland series is fantastic because there's such
large plants, and typically, you know, we think of a
large or a gigantic which is what a lot of
these are classified as as just kind of getting almost
as big of a shrub as a shrub. This one,
in particular, you don't get nineteen inches talls. You're saying,

(36:01):
that's not a gigantic hosta, what are you talking about?
But really it's the spread of this plant getting about
fifty five inches wide at its maturity, so it's lob wide.
So if you're looking for something to really take up
a lot of space and really brighten up a shady spot,
this is a fantastic selection because you get that white vanation,

(36:22):
but you also kind of have a multitude of colors
around the edge of that leaf, so you get quite
a bit of tonal variation. And you also do get
really pretty flowers with this one. I think people don't
think apastas for flowers, but we do get some really
large scapes that are lovely lavender color, and I've seen
people actually start putting these in cut flowers. So there's

(36:46):
more than just foliage attraction for this fantastic hoasta.

Speaker 1 (36:50):
Yeah, definitely an impact plant and then landscape Perennial of
the year. I can see why this one was chosen.
It's a favorite of mine, cats meow, And I'm going
to ask you, Kayla, we were joking about this earlier.
As far as your pronunciation is concerned, at least, I've
heard it all nepeta, nepita, nepita, what do you say?

Speaker 3 (37:14):
I am kind of partial to nepata, but I've heard
it all the ways as well, Tomato, tomato, whatever your
preferences for cat mins. I don't think we all know
what we're talking about, right, exactly.

Speaker 1 (37:27):
Right, exactly? What do you love about cats me ow?

Speaker 3 (37:31):
You know, I think we're all used to some of
the older varieties that have been on the market for
a long time that kind of flap open and definitely
need one or two or three haircuts throughout the year.
This is one of those plants that you're really kind
of taking it to that next generation where you still
have that lovely habit. But we've got really beautiful spikes

(37:53):
of sky blue flowers with a purple calyx, so you
get a little bit of a two tone effect with
that purple color, super long blooming. It branches really well,
so it doesn't open up quite as bad, and so
it keeps a really nice tidy habit, and so it's
a well behaved cat in the garden, and the pollinators

(38:14):
love it and you'll love it as a gardener as well,
not having to give it so many haircuts to keep
it looking good.

Speaker 2 (38:21):
And from your perspective, is that what makes one of
the proving winner's perennials suitable for the landscape Perennial of
the year, this kind of low maintenance or is it
that there are already plants that are widely used in
the landscape trade. What is the qualification there?

Speaker 3 (38:37):
So for a landscape perennial the year, you definitely hit
on it. Not only does it have to have great
garden performance, be low maintenance, especially for the commercial companies
that are having to come back and touch bold plants regularly.
But availability is really a big deal with this. A
lot of the time with our plants of the year,
they have to be on the market for a certain

(38:57):
amount of time. They can't just be an new variety.
But when it comes to the landscape perennial, of the year.
We absolutely want to make sure that that plant has
readily available in the market for landscapers to get access to.
So it has to be available in large quantities from
a lot of different growers and wholesalers. So we really

(39:17):
want to make sure that that plant is available in
the supply chain when designers are looking for it, they
can get access to it very easily. And then you
also have that confidence that this has great performance and
it's trustworthy. And these aren't just plants that we come
up with. These are voted on by a number of

(39:40):
industry professionals as well, so people who are active in
the industry give an opportunity to say, yeah, we think
that that is such a great plant, we'd like to
give it a little extra special attention.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
We're chatting with Kayla Olsen. Proven winners' perennials in this
segment and Kayla beyond the perennial Plants of the Year,
unbelievable the number of new exciting introductions. I mean, I've
got to mention right off the top, both Stacey and
I struggle with deer pressure and so I'm a big

(40:14):
fan of aliums and I'm reading about this Bobblehead alium,
where the description says much larger and more robust than serendipity.
I love serendipity, So you got my attention there.

Speaker 3 (40:31):
Well, we love serendipity as well. But you know, a
lot of the aliums that we've seen in the market
have been a little bit smaller and more moderate in size.
Bobblehead is one of these varieties that's actually really large,
and so for people that have been maybe struggling with
planting dailies because the deer just loved a munch on them,

(40:53):
this is a great alternative in the same size as
a daily. So we're talking thirty to thirty two inches
tall the plant itself, not really including that flower scape,
and so it's got some substance. The leaves are a
fantastic kind of strappy twist to them, so you get
a little bit of texture. Still they're that pretty glaucous

(41:15):
blue green. But I think one of the things that
is fantastic about a large alium is that you also
get large flowers. And so when we say that these
flowers are about three three and a half inches, to
give you a sense of scale, think about the size
of a tennis ball. And so now you've got almost
three foot wide plant. There are two foot wide plants

(41:35):
that's got all these tennis balls of lavender flowers on
them that the deer and rabbits aren't gonna much on.

Speaker 2 (41:42):
Twist my arm. I'm loving it. I'm definitely adding that one.

Speaker 3 (41:47):
This season was a little bit earlier than some of
the other varieties, and so you're going to see it
in midsummer and those flowers are going to last for
a long time.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
Stacy's been talking about pairing perennials with flowers and shrubs,
and Stacy, this one caught my eye. I don't know
about you, but the living large a big sky salvia
supersized perennial Salvia's.

Speaker 2 (42:10):
I mean, I love big perennials. So again, twist my
arm like you're speaking my language here.

Speaker 1 (42:16):
What about that plant, Kayla.

Speaker 3 (42:19):
That is one of those hidden gems that I think
people have never seen at this type of salvia on
the market before. It's new to us, and we think
that consumers are just going to be so excited about
it because it does give you almost the shrub like
size perennial. So much of the breeding has been shrinking things,
but this time we decided to go big or go home.

(42:43):
And so this is a Pretensius type salvia, so everything
about it is supersized. You get large strappy leaves, you
get really tall flower scapes, and you also get really
large individual flowers. So you get a lot of texture
with this plant. And as it blooms, it just keeps

(43:03):
working up the stem, adding more and more color, so
you get a long season of bloom. Huge impact in
the garden.

Speaker 2 (43:10):
Now. I know a lot of people gardeners in colder
climates like us here in Michigan here selvia, and they
start to get, you know, maybe a little bit cautious
because we can We've all fallen in love with a
tender selvia that we cannot grow. So what's the hardness
on this one?

Speaker 3 (43:28):
If you think that Michigan is a cold climate, I
got news for you. Party up in Pull zone three.
All of our friends up in Minnesota, the Dakotas in
the Canada can also enjoy this plant. So it's super
hardy in this soone that come back a year after
year for you.

Speaker 1 (43:47):
The fabulous summerrific hibiscus Stacey, both you and I enjoy
them in our yards. I don't know, do you have
cookies and cream? I see cookies and cream.

Speaker 2 (43:56):
I do have cookies and cream. But the plants that
I got were last year's sam so they're little. But
cookies and cream is a smaller one, right, Khila.

Speaker 3 (44:04):
It is a small one. It is a nice little
treat for you in the garden. I think that this
one is probably going to be my favorite new perennial
this year. A lot of people don't realize that partial
hybiscus are natives the US, and they're used to them
because being these giant plants that can kind of take
over a space. This one is really fantastic because it

(44:26):
really only gets about three feet wide and three feet tall,
so it's a nice compact plant that can fit in
a ton of different landscapes. And it really has fantastic foliage.
So even when it's not blooming, you still get this
great violet purple foliage. And then when it starts to bloom,

(44:48):
it really shows you that display of pure white flowers.
The flowers are super large, but they don't have that
red eye that you typically get with a red foliage plant,
and so it's a really big contrast and none.

Speaker 2 (44:59):
Of them yellow. Because I know, some of the earlier
whites did kind of have like a more yellowy ivory tone,
and this one is a really nice crisp, pure white.

Speaker 3 (45:10):
Crisp pure white. Yet you'll see a little bit of
yellow on the anthers with a little bit of that pollen,
but it's not enough to really make you see unless
you're looking up close. This is a fantastic plant that
I think is going to be super Popular's.

Speaker 1 (45:24):
Talk about a few more of these wonderful introductions, Kyla.
I'm looking at Kaleidoscope different cultivars there of hardy ice plant. Wow,
I think that there's real interest in ice plant.

Speaker 3 (45:43):
Well, it's such a fantastic ground cover that's super low
growing at only about two to four inches tall. And
I think people think of ice plant as a succulent
and you can't grow it in cool climates, but that's
not necessarily true. We've been relying heavily overwintering it in
western Michigan in zone six, but we believe that it's

(46:05):
actually a little bit hardier than that. We think into
five B, especially if you've got really well drained soil,
especially if it's sandy, it's going to do fantastic and
so You got a lot of interest with this plant,
aside from it really covering the ground with these thick
waxy leaves. In the spring, when it's emerging, you get
fantastic deep purple and burgundy colors. And then once it

(46:28):
starts blooming throughout the season, it just kind of doesn't
stop blooming unless it's a really cloudy day. I think
most people don't understand that this plant is very photo sensitive.
So when the sun comes out, those flowers open right up,
and when the sun goes behind the cloud, they might
close up a little bit. So they kind of like
to play peekaboo with you throughout the day.

Speaker 2 (46:48):
Oh, they keep things interesting. Yeah, But now the Cloudscope series,
you have multiple colors in this right.

Speaker 3 (46:54):
We do. There's four colors in the series, and so
we've got Dancing Numbers, which is a reddish orange. There's
Orchid Flash, which is a deep dark labnder pink. There's
Pink Radiance, which has a light pink flower and it's
kind of a rosy purple center. So you get it
two tone effects. And my favorite is Razzle Dazzle, and

(47:15):
that is because it's a bicolor. It's got raspberry red
tips with a future purple eye, and then the anthers
and stamens create kind of a creamy, whitish yellow center.
So you've got three colors going on and it's just fantastic.

Speaker 2 (47:30):
Well, I have them all in my new succulent garden
and I'm super excited to see them. I do have
a problem with rabbits and my Dellas Burma. Any advice there, dear.

Speaker 3 (47:46):
I feet that you don't like as much.

Speaker 2 (47:49):
I know, I know, but I started with bigger plants,
so I'm hopeful that at least some will survive enough
that early spring onslaught when they're like, you know, so
hungry for any little tender bit that's emerging. But I
love Dellas Fermother. Just one of those plants that people
see and they're like, you can grow this in Michigan, right.

Speaker 3 (48:08):
And the nice thing about this series as well is
that they're really vigorous. And one thing that some of
the older varieties have had is that they're a little
slow growing and they kind of take their time to spread.
These are not aggressive, but they definitely grow pretty quickly
for DLAs Birma, and so at about two years, you're
going to see them get to about twenty four inches wide,

(48:30):
and so they will continue to grow, but they will
start taking up a little bit of space and moving
in and around the rocks and other plants that you've
got and continue that trail of color all summer.

Speaker 1 (48:43):
With the interest in cut flower gardening and cutting flowers
from your own garden, I'm keying in here, Kayla and Alstromeria.
You know, this is a plant that in the garden
center industry I always sold as a summer flowering bulb
people used for cut flowers. Now here you have a
series summer break, summer breeze, summer heat, and you're saying

(49:08):
that it's trialed pretty well in Zone six trials.

Speaker 3 (49:13):
Yeah, this is definitely one of those plants that has
taken a really long time to gain some traction in
the perennial market because it has been such a florist
flower or treated as an annual bulb. But we're starting
to get some genetics that are allowing us to overwinter
up into zone six. Because this is kind of a

(49:33):
tropical plant. It's also known as Peruvian lily, so it's
neative to Peru. But now that we've got these great
colors for the garden, the other big thing about getting
a good garden plant was making sure that it had
good foliage as well, and it created had a nice
habit overall in the garden. Wasn't just a bunch of
leggy stems. So aside from this fantastic bloom flower of

(49:59):
these ants and the nice long stocks that you can
still do cut flowers with, the foliage in the garden
itself is great. I think Summer Breeze probably has the
prettiest foliage because it's a lot darker. It's got some
purple black tones, so it really contrasts with the flowers.

Speaker 1 (50:16):
That's beautiful.

Speaker 2 (50:17):
Now what Sorry, Rick, but I'm curious since I have
not grown Elster Maria myself, it's hard for me to
kind of envision or make that you know, visual transition
from the cut stem that I'm used to to what
the habit actually looks like in the garden. So can
you kind of give us a visual picture of, you know,
what it actually looks like, what a gardener can expect
and how to use it in the garden.

Speaker 3 (50:39):
Yeah. So they do get kind of tall, about thirty
six to forty two inches tall, so about three feet
and they also get about three feet wide. They form
a really nice mound with a lot of color at
the top of the plant, and you'll notice that the
flowers there's multiple blooming on each stem at each time,
with a bunch of bugs waiting in line to start

(51:01):
blooming right afterwards, so it just keeps that color going.
They're really good at self cleaning, so when one flower's done,
it makes way for the rest, so you don't have
to do a lot of dead heading. It'll do it
by itself. But also because of this great mound, there's
lots of stems coming out of the base of it.
If you do decide to take a few for your bases,

(51:22):
you're not going to harm the habit of the plant,
so you can enjoy it both at your table and
in your garden at the same time. And these do
really really well in well drained soils. But we do
recommend a little bit of winter protection, so if you
could throw a few extra leaves, some extra cuttings on
there to make some extra molts in the winter time,

(51:44):
just especially if there isn't a lot of snow cover
in your area throughout the winter when those temps really
do dip, you'll get the best results from that.

Speaker 1 (51:53):
Just a few moments left here, KYLEA. But wanted to
ask you, being in the garden center industry for many years,
at least from my personal perspective, I would say that
campanulas as well as yarrow, I call it achillia. I
don't know if you pronounce it that way or not.
You say achille, I do I do?

Speaker 3 (52:14):
I call it achillia?

Speaker 2 (52:15):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (52:16):
Am I right that that there's real interest in new
cultivars with both Campaniola and yarrow.

Speaker 3 (52:24):
Yeah, they're definitely having a moment that they were kind
of considered your grandma's plant for a while and there
wasn't a lot of breeding work happening, and so some
of the varieties on the market were getting a little sale.
So in terms of the achillia, we do have a series.
It's the Firefly series, and we've got a number of

(52:47):
different colors in there. Most recently we just added a
fusia and a red. And so not only are we
kind of updating the habit of those plants, making sure
that they've got really hearty stems, that they don't open up,
that they're not a bully in the garden that just
kind of aggressively propagates itself around so it stays where

(53:09):
you planted it. We're also bringing some of those more
intense colors to the garden, so it's not necessarily all
the soft past cells. That you can get some fusha
and some reds in there as well for some excitement.
And when it comes to companila, there's quite a few
different species that we're playing with. One of the series

(53:30):
it is our bell series, and these are a Glomorada type,
so they're an upright but they kind of have a
really unique flower structure. They're clustered in a way that
you maybe wouldn't know it was a bellflower unless you
looked pretty closely at each individual flower. And so not
only do we have a purple in that series, which

(53:51):
is a really deep violet purple, but we also have
a white and so they look really great together and
really contrast each other nicely. And then we also have
a series of Carpavoca types which are our mini Marvel series.
There's three colors in it, and these are the really
ground cover type companilas. That's fantastic along the edges of

(54:14):
your garden, kind of filling in those little spots in
between your taller plants and providing you summer long color
along your walkways with so many flowers that you almost
can't see the foliage at times.

Speaker 1 (54:29):
Beautiful Kayla, thanks for joining us on the Gardening Simplified Show.
Before I let you go, going to ask you an
unfair question. Do you have a favorite? So much to
look forward to in twenty twenty five? And if you don't,
then just tell me. No, Rick, I can't pick a favorite,
But do you have a favorite?

Speaker 3 (54:47):
You know I do and I have to say it's
cookies and cream. That plant just makes me so happy
every time I look at it.

Speaker 1 (54:53):
Oh, fantastic, fantastic, Kayla Olson proven winners Perennials, Kala, thanks
so much for joining us on the Simplified Show.

Speaker 3 (55:02):
Thanks for having me happy gardening.

Speaker 1 (55:04):
Happy Gardening.

Speaker 2 (55:05):
Well that was great. I am so hyped up for
this spring. I have a bunch of those perennials, which
is great, and I'm going to be adding a bunch.

Speaker 1 (55:13):
More so something to look forward.

Speaker 2 (55:15):
Absolutely still a couple months away, but you know, it's
all about the dream. So thanks so much te Kayla
for all of that time and great information. Thank you Rick,
thank you Aderana, and of course thanks to all of you.
For listening. We really appreciate your support and hope you
have a wonderful week ahead.