SunPatiens

Another exciting new release for your garden this year is Sunpatiens, or to be precise SunPatiens®. It is possible you may have heard of these already, because last year they were available exclusively from a certain big box hardware store (aka Home Depot). I'm not sure if they were available in Canada, so it may have been only in the States, it doesn't matter, because they're available to all growers this year. Since this our first year to grow them, we won't have very many, but I suspect they are going to disappear in a hurry. The photo is taken by yours truely, last summer at the JVK trial gardens in St. Catherines, Ontario.

Here's our description:

Winter Hardiness: Annual
Light Requirements: Full sun - part sun

Where to plant: Large Containers or Beds
Height: 24 - 48"

Width: 18" - 48"

Spacing: 16 - 20"



They're the flower we've been waiting years for: a true sunshine impatiens. SunPatiens® are the first Impatiens to thrive in full hot sun, all summer long. Their ability withstand the heat of summer is truly extraordinary, and amazingly they also are happy in shade -even indoors! 



Garden Performance
SunPatiens® are easy to grow, and will thrive until frost. They're available in three habits: Compact, Vigorous, and Spreading, but watch out, even the 'compact' ones are big (24” - 36”) so they'll do best in the ground, or in very large containers. We have eight varieties this year, and even more coming next year.


Growing Guide
Lots of room and lots of sun! SunPatiens® are new, so we've never grown them, but it sounds like a easy flower to grow and keep in bloom.

Fertilizer: Moderate feeder, any all purpose, compost, etc


Colours and Varieties

There are three series with a total of 15 cultivars. We are growing 8 varieties in 2010 (marked as*)


Vigorous SunPatiens® Series
Garden Height: 36 - 48"
Garden Width: 36 - 48"
Container Height: 24 - 36"
Container Width: 24 - 36"
Colours: Variegated Coral*, Lavender*, Magenta*, Orange, Red, White*

Compact SunPatiens® Series
Garden Height: 24 - 36"
Garden Width: 24 - 36"
Container Height: 18 - 24"
Container Width: 18 - 24"
Colours: Blush Pink*, Deep Rose, Light Coral, Lilac*, Magenta*, Orange, White 

Spreading SunPatiens® Series
Garden Height: 36 - 48"
Garden Width: 36 - 48"
Container Height: 24 - 36"
Container Width: 24 - 36"
Colours: Variegated Salmon, Variegated White*

Further Information (links)
:
SunPatiens are developed by Sakata

Even better, there's an exclusive website: SunPatiens®

Lob-U-What?

Lobularia
Snow Princess Lobularia is a new release for 2010. I bet you've never heard of Lobularia before, and I bet you think in the picture it looks an awful lot like alyssum. You're absolutely right. Lobularia is Alyssum. Seems the botany taxonomers have decided that from now on Alyssum should be known as Lobularia, so Snow Princess is indeed an Alyssum,  and I don't mind if you call it alyssum, we won't tell the botanists. We saw it for the first time last summer where we took this picture at the Proven Winners® trial gardens.
We thought it looked pretty good, so we're growing them this year.

Our Description of Snow Princess:
Annual
Full sun - part sun

Large Containers or 
Beds

6 - 8" Tall

12" - 24" Cascade

Snow Princess is a new release from Proven Winners® for 2010, best described as a trailing alyssum. The mounding white blooms have great staying power, require little maintenance, and have a beautiful fragrance. 



Garden Performance: Snow Princess will put on a great show all season. It's more heat tolerant than regular alyssum, but watch out, it's a hearty drinker, so we don't recommend growing it in small containers. It is a vigorous grower, so be careful with your combinations, as it will outgrow its neighbours!

Flower Update Week 3

This week we planted a few more things: Emerald and Silver Falls Dichondra, most of the coleus, the first variety of petunias, and the second batch of Salvia. So far everything is going according to schedule. The photos are not very interesting, all we can really see now is growing media and small green leave. That will certainly change as the weeks go on.

The seed geraniums are starting to grow quickly, most varieties have started to put out a second true leaf, and by now nearly all of the slow pokes have sprouted.

Here's the Dichondra just coming up. Just think, in four months it will be trailing over three feet.

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The Ptilotus Joey (right row) and strawberries (middle two rows) are now visible, but the helichrysum (left row) is still hard to make out.

Views of our Garden

Here are a few highlights from our garden this year. I guess you can say we do a pretty good job of growing flowers in our greenhouses, but I must confess to almost completely ignoring our garden. Here is an assortment of flowers we're growing this year that are doing well, in spite of neglect!


Mini Cascade Red Hanging Baskets: These are simply the best hanging baskets you can possibly grow. Almost all you can see is colour, the pot is completely covered with a profusion of blooms that last from May until October. It's completely maintenance free, with an invisible wire hanger, all you need to do is water (and they like it on the dry side which is great if you're not good at remembering to water!). We even add slow release fertilizer so you don't need to bother with that.




Sparkler Cleome: This tall background flower is another of our maintenance free favourites. Plant it. Ignore it. Extremely drought tolerant.






SuperBells Dreamsicle Calibrachoa: Commonly known as "Million Bells", these flowers bloom and bloom all season. They're easy to look after, all you have to do is water them. In this planter, we've combined them with Horizon Orange Ice Geraniums.














Tidal Wave Petunias: Best flower bang for your buck!

It's all in the timing

I try to grow our flowers so that each plant has one fully open bloom by the second week of May. If it blooms later than that, customers won't see the colour, so it won't sell very well. An earlier bloom will be past it's prime for peak May sales. Timing is easy when you've grown a particular plant before, it's the new stuff that is a problem! It's always a guess the first time you grow something, and boy did I get the Lantana wrong this year. The buds are just about to open up today -that's nearly a month late! Better luck next year.
(btw, Diamond Frost was new this year, and timing was perfect for it)

When will it rain?

It's a quiet day on the farm, time to do some computer work, such as starting up this blog!
The guys are out weeding the strawberries, and we hope to get that all done before the rains begin. While waiting for customers, I'm tidying up the greenhouses, the flowers do look great if I do say so myself!

So far so good (for me, the novice blogger), I've uploaded an image, chose "small", maybe I should have made it bigger? We'll see.

The picture is of a cart loaded with flowers that a customer picked out from our greenhouses. Looks like Tango Orange geraniums, Gulliver White bacopa and Silhouette Red double impatiens.