LITTLE ROCK — A fresh gardening season means a slew of new plants and products, including almost a dozen winning the 2012 Green Thumb Awards from the Direct Gardening Association, formerly known as the Mailorder Gardening Association.
Winners were chosen by an independent panel of garden writers and editors.
Here are the 10 winners:
Harvest Booster Perennial Collection.
Pollinators, including bees, are a gardener’s best friend, so this collection helps the home gardener with an assortment of small and medium flowering perennials that can be planted in and around vegetable gardens and potted vegetables so pollination is improved. The collection includes two plants each of six flowering perennials: Pink Lace bee balm, Select Blue catnip, Blue Fortune agastache, purple coneflower, Little Lemon goldenrod and Rotkugel oregano. The plants are cold hardy in Zones 5-9 and also tolerate heat. $89.99.
Brakelights red yucca.
It’s a hummingbird magnet with bright red instead of typical reddish-orange flowers on a plant known as Texas red yucca. The native, evergreen succulent, scientifically called Hesperaloe parviflora, is a semi-dwarf cultivator with 30-inch-tall flower spikes from a multi-stemmed crown of dark green, straplike leaves. It blooms in late summer and is cold hardy in Zones 5-10. $24.99 per 1-gallon pot.
Fire Spinner ice plant.
This South African’s vibrant tricolored flowers cover a tight evergreen mat of succulent foliage. A heat-loving groundcover scientifically known as Delosperma, the plant grows best in full sun and well drained sandyloam soil (no rich, heavy loams or clay). Use the plant in raised beds and low-water landscapes; cover with gravel mulch or a very, very light layer of hardwood mulch. The groundcover grows 1 inch tall and each plant spreads 15 to 18 inches. It’s cold hardy in Zones 6-10. $5.99 per 21/2-inch pot.
Black Magic blackberry.
Now blackberry-loving gardeners can have berries not once but multiple times during the growing season. This double-cropping variety sets a large summer crop and a later fall crop — and can even produce fruit throughout summer, depending on growing conditions. The upright, self-supporting and lightly thorned canes are easy to maintain and thrive even during 100-degree days. $19.99 per 1-year-old plant.
Texas early white onions.
This open-pollinated variety produces a white, globe-shaped, sweet onion that matures early in the season. This short-day variety is ideal for growing in the southern parts of the country. Plants are sold in bunches of five dozen plants. $11 one bunch, $15 two bunches, $19 three bunches.
Garden Pest Bait.
An active ingredient that’s a combination of spinosad, derived from soil-based bacterium, and iron phosphate is used in this bait to kill cutworms, earwigs, sowbugs, ants, slugs and snails in an environmentally friendly way. $14.95 per 13-ounce package or $24.95 for 2.25-pound package.
Yard Net Granular.
When you have a yard party, no one wants to spend their time swatting pests. Instead, this time-release lawn and yard insect repellent helps control biting insects such as mosquitoes, fleas, ticks, black flies and gnats for up to a full week. The eco-friendly formula can be used around children and pets, and it won’t harm vegetation. Made with botanical oils, Yard Net Granular by the Liquid Fence Co. (known for deer and rabbit repellents) contains no pyrethrins, no pyrethroids and no d-limonene. The convenient shake-to-apply bottle makes it easy to apply. $24.99 per 2-pound shaker bottle, which covers 1,000 square feet; $24.99.
Vegetable patio planter.
The Veg Trug Patio Planter is a raised bed made from sustainable, plantation-grown fir. It’s ideal for the elderly and wheelchair users, or anyone who wants a comfortable gardening height. Best of all, the height keeps slugs and snails away from vegetable plants. The planter comes with a fitted membrane liner and can be easily netted or covered if necessary. Its V shape allows a variety of vegetables to be grown within the same container. The planter holds 380 quarts of compost or soil, and measures 71 inches long by 31 inches high and 30 inches deep. $269.
BioMarker plant markers.
Made from a blend of recycled plastic and corn cob fiber, each marker lasts for many growing seasons. The BioMarker kit also includes weather-proof peel-off labels that can be printed with a laser printer or written on directly with the included grease pencil. Three colors are available — light stone, medium brown and dark green — or choose the variety pack. $29.95 for set of 15 or $49.95 for set of 30.
EarthBox Junior.
The original EarthBox has been around for years, helping gardeners grow vegetables and flowers anywhere, anytime. Now the junior version makes it easier to do even more with convenient, small-space gardening.
Because EarthBox Junior measures a compact 23 inches long by 7 1/4 inches wide and 91/2 inches tall, it is ideal for a kitchen herb garden, decorative window box or a floral deck planter — even in the smallest of spaces. Like the original, Junior has a water reservoir that automatically wicks the proper amount of moisture to plants. $24.95.
HomeStyle, Pages 36 on 03/24/2012