The Gardening Me

Favourite All-America Selections Winners I Grew This Year

2025-11-23T19:32:00.004-05:00

Here we are at the end of November and it won’t be long before the garden has a thick blanket of snow.

Memories of this past season....

This year has seen a lot of disruption in our lives as we decided to finally complete some long overdue renovations, both inside & outside. One of the garden projects was a new path to replace the uneven, dilapidated path from the driveway to the deck/backyard. It had gone from bad to practically unusable last year when we replaced the deck:

Before: What a mess!

After: Believe it or not, these are the same bricks as the old walkway!

We reused the bricks from the old path - turned upside down as I wasn't a fan of the beveled edges - in addition to a pile that we saved from the front walkway that was redone years ago. We're so happy with how it turned out! Still some cleanup to do but am excited to go plant shopping next year to fill up the empty beds.

I knew it would be a busy year so I purposefully cut back on my plans for the garden. That didn’t, however, stop me from growing quite a lot (maybe too much?) from seed. I always tend to overdo the seed starting, but honestly, that’s nothing new – I just can’t help myself, no matter how hard I try 😉

Amongst the many seeds I started this spring, there were quite a few AAS winners & today, I'll be highlighting some of my favourites. All-America Selections (AAS) is a non-profit that partners with organizations throughout North America, ranging from seed companies to botanical gardens to universities, to test new ornamental and edible varieties. Volunteer judges at each organization evaluate the AAS entries, which are only identified by a code to ensure an unbiased evaluation. The judges score each entry throughout the growing season based on a range of criteria and those with the top scores earn the AAS Winner designation.

Let’s start with the veggies first.

Pepper (sweet) ‘Pick-N-Pop Yellow’ – AAS 2025 (National)

Pick-N-Pop Yellow - a brand new 2025 AAS winner - is a snacking pepper that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Pick-N-Pop Yellow together with another
AAS winner 'San Joaquin' jalapeno

The plants were loaded with peppers that were incredibly juicy and sweet. In fact, most didn’t even make it back into the house as they were the perfect snack while working in the garden.

Thick walls & juicy interior

The plants were also quite compact and stocky, making them ideal for smaller spaces.

Specs: 65 days from transplant to fully ripe; 24” tall.

Squash (pattypan) ‘Green Lightening’ – AAS 2025 (National)

When it comes to summer squash, it’s hit or miss around here as the squash vine borer usually attacks before we get a good harvest. This year, I was able to thwart the dreaded borer by sowing my seeds super late – in mid-July. And that’s what makes Green Lightening, another 2025 AAS winner, so wonderful.

It’s a quick maturing pattypan variety that goes from seed to harvest in as little as 48 days! That means that I was harvesting from my July sowing by the end of August…and no borer in sight! Aside from it’s quick maturity, this pattypan is also gorgeous – I mean, look at those stripes! – and it’s just as delicious as it looks.

Specs: 48 days from direct sowing to harvest (40 days from transplant); 2.5-5” fruits; bush type.

Pepper (sweet) ‘Dragonfly’ – AAS 2022 (National)

I grew Dragonfly for the first time last year & enjoyed it so much I decided to grow it again this season. Dragonfly – a 2022 AAS winner – gives me the earliest bell pepper harvest ever - I was picking by mid-July!

The peppers have thick, juicy walls & while I could wait until they reach their fully red stage, I usually picked them when they are deep purple with a beautiful contrasting lime green interior so that the plants continued to produce, right up to frost.

Specs: 75 days from transplant (to purple/green stage); 24-36” tall.

Broccoli ‘Purple Magic’ - AAS 2024 (National)

I didn’t grow broccoli this year (due to the aforementioned “cutting back”) but I do want to give a shout-out to one of my favourite varieties from last year – ‘Purple Magic’.

This one is a 2024 winner with an absolutely gorgeous purple head. The very large head (the one pictured ended up weighing over 3 lbs!) is tight & uniform and, most importantly, has a beautifully full broccoli flavour. In addition, Purple Magic did produce a few side shoots later in the season with the final harvest being in October.

Specs: 90 days from transplant to harvest; 30” tall.

Now let’s move on to my favourite ornamentals.

Snapdragon 'Doubleshot Orange Bicolor' - AAS 2023 (National) & Snapdragon 'Doubleshot Yellow Red Heart' - AAS 2025 (National)

I’ve grown the Doubleshot series of snapdragons for a couple of years now and absolutely love them. The beautiful, open-faced blooms are so unusual for a snapdragon.

Doubleshot Yellow Red Heart

Last year I grew the 2023 AAS winner ‘Doubleshot Orange Bicolor’ & this year I added the brand new 2025 winner ‘Doubleshot Yellow Red Heart’ to the grow list.

There's a good amount of colour variation in the Doubleshot Orange Bicolor, ranging from orange to orange-red, while the Yellow Red Heart is exactly as it sounds - yellow with a red-tinged centre.

The stems on these medium sized varieties are sturdy so they don’t flop & get unruly like the taller varieties. While we generally don’t have super strong winds around here, I’ve read that the Doubleshot series has even held up to hurricane force winds, which is quite the feat.

Doubleshot Orange Bicolor

Another boon is their heat tolerance, blooming for the entire season without the usual mid-summer slow down. In my garden, when temps hit the 30's (86+ Fahrenheit), they simply shrugged it off.

Specs: 18-20” tall & space 12” apart; full sun to part shade.

Coleus 'Premium Sun Coral Candy' - AAS 2023 (National)

I have been growing Sun Coral Candy for 3 years now and it’s still at the top of my list of favourite coleus varieties. First, there's the gorgeous colour and unusual narrow leaves. Then there's the structure...it forms a beautiful cascading mound.

And while we grow most annuals for their blooms, when it comes to coleus, the fewer blooms the better. Sun Coral Candy gets high marks on this front as well – I typically pinch off no more than 3 or 4 blooms the entire season which is pretty darn impressive!

Specs: 10-16” tall, space 10” apart; full to part shade, but tolerates full sun in northern latitudes with only a bit of colour fading.

Marigold 'Siam Gold' - AAS 2024 (National)

I’ve grown a lot of marigolds over the years but they have been predominantly the French & Signet types. Tucked away in my stash, I had a packet of seeds for an African marigold called Garuda Deep Gold, an AAS winner from 2019. Last year, I decided to finally crack open the packet & try them because…..why not?

I didn’t think I would be taken by this ball-type marigold (which is likely why they sat in my stash for so long) but, as is so often the case when I see a plant IRL vs simply a pic, I ended up absolutely smitten.

While Garuda Deep Gold is a tall, cutting flower type (growing to about 3’ tall), this year I tried the much more compact Siam Gold, a recent 2024 winner. This one topped out at only around 20” tall although the flowers were pretty much the same size as the taller variety. The stems were exceptionally sturdy, holding up the huge blooms without issue, even in windy weather. I did zero staking and there were no floppers in the bunch.

The blooms on both varieties were extremely densely packed & they had staying power - each flower lasted for weeks before it started to slowly fade.

Siam Gold - 18-20” tall, space 16” apart; full sun

Last, but definitely not least, let’s turn to my two hands-down favourites. I was so taken by both of them that picking one over the other ended up being much too difficult.

Begonia 'Viking Explorer Rose on Green' - AAS 2022 (Gold Medal*)

Begonias can be a bit tricky to grow from seed and I did try growing this one last year but didn’t have much luck. Not one to give up after the first try, I gave it another go and….whoa!! These were incredible!

Begonia seedlings potted up on May 5

I started this 2022 Gold Metal* winner extra early, in February, and after a very slow start (which is par for the course when it comes to growing begonias from seed), I had some good-sized plants by the end of May to place in pots on my shady front porch steps. These guys grew, and grew, and grew – they were phenomenal.

What really impressed me, even more than the beautiful red blooms, was the glossy foliage. It was surreal – in fact, it was so shiny that my daughter quite seriously asked if they were real. Why yes, yes they are!

July 9th

This is a very floriferous trailing begonia and the stems draped beautifully over the edges of the pots as the summer progressed. The plants didn’t balk at the hot, often dry conditions either. Despite being in smallish (8-12”) terra cotta pots & watering them only once or twice per week, they didn’t droop at all even when temps were sky high without a drop of rain.

Specs: 16” tall & 3 plants will fit comfortably in a 14-16” pot; part sun to full shade.

Petunia ‘Shake Raspberry’ - AAS 2025 (National)

Tied for first place this year with the Viking Explorer Begonias was the ‘Shake Raspberry’ Petunia. Full disclosure, I’m not generally a huge petunia fan – the fact that these were a favourite this year gives you an inkling as to how fabulous they were.

This 2025 AAS winner (whose blooms resemble a blended raspberry milkshake, hence the name) is naturally compact, so I decided to plant them in a window box – a harsh environment for a plant, but perfect for really testing out how tough they are.

I packed 5 seedlings into the window box in late May and they just got better and better as the season progressed. Shake Raspberry lasted all season long and didn’t melt in the summer heat. They also recovered quickly from a couple of dry spells where I forgot to water – a true testament to how resilient they are, despite their delicate appearance.

Still going strong on September 2nd

And since these guys are grown from seed (as are all the plants I’ve talked about in this post), I can have a couple dozen of them for the same price as a one-quart pot at the garden centre – one of the many reasons I love growing from seed!

Specs: 5-8” tall, space 10-12” apart; full sun to part shade.

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And that’s the roundup of my favourite AAS winners from the 2025 growing season. If you’ve grown a new plant or variety this year that you ended up loving, do let me know in the comments.

Happy Gardening!

*Gold Medal Winner – This rare award, which has only been given to a few varieties in AAS history, is awarded when a variety is truly exceptional, significantly superior to existing varieties, and has a major breakthrough in performance or breeding: AAS Gold Medal Winners.

Visiting Bonnie Plants (Opelika, Alabama)

2024-07-19T06:00:00.002-04:00

Whether you are a newbie or seasoned gardener, no doubt you are familiar with Bonnie Plants. Being the largest grower of vegetable and herb plants for the home gardener in North America, they are ubiquitous on garden centre shelves throughout the country.

I was thrilled that one of the stops during the recent National Garden Bureau Summit was the new Bonnie Plants headquarters in Opelika, Alabama.

Their new headquarters is an amazing space that includes both indoor and outdoor workspaces as well as a trial garden.

One of the outdoor workspaces

And this is the view - wow!

It’s hard to believe that a company with such an expansive reach was started when Bonnie and Livingston Paulk purchased a couple of pounds of cabbage seed, sowed it in their backyard, and then lugged the fully grown heads to town in a buggy.

Sign from the original barn in Union Springs

Starting from those modest roots in Union Springs, Alabama, Bonnie Plants now operates 86 greenhouses across four states.

This 10' living wall at their new headquarters is large enough to filter
the air in the entire office at least once per day 😲

The care they took when designing their new offices, especially when it came to enhancing employee's work environment, was impressive.

The Livingston Room, with it's wall of windows, is open to all
as a workspace or meeting room

The company mission is to enhance lives through the power of plants. To fulfill this mission, they aim to offer high-quality vegetable and herb plants at a reasonable price. Recently, they have broadened their objectives to encompass education, and their website (www.bonnieplants.com) is full of gardening tips, advice, and inspiration.

Exploring the Trial Gardens

Bonnie Plants focus is on small spaces such as patios, balconies & container gardening and this was reflected in their trial gardens, with it's abundance of compact herb and veggie varieties.

I was immediately drawn to this hanging basket with....cucumbers? Even though I'm not lacking in space, I REALLY want to try this.

Patio Perfect Cucumber

Lots of babies in there!

Then there were all of the tiny tomatoes....and I'm talking about the plants here, not necessarily the fruits. Tiny Temptations, an ultra sweet cherry tomato, barely hit 12" tall (although it can get up to a "whopping" 16 inches 🙃):

Tiny Temptations - Big flavour on a tiny plant

But let's say you want a big tomato on an indeterminate plant that doesn't become unruly & take over. Tidy Rose - a beefsteak variety that produces 5-7 oz pink fruits and only gets 3-5' tall - may be just what you are looking for:

And if you grow tomatoes, it usually follows that you also want a nice stand of basil. Basil tops the chart when it comes to favourite herbs in North America, so it's not surprising that Bonnie Plants diverse basil lineup is one of their best sellers.

Purple Ball basil, with it's compact, densely branched habit & gorgeous deep purple leaves, was a standout.

Purple Ball Basil

I really liked the added interest provided by the colour variation on the leaves. Those that receive the most sun on top are incredibly dark but then, and as you move down the plant, there are hints of green where it's shadier.

Just beside Purple Ball was another basil that didn't have a sign - it was such a cutie with much smaller leaves, but the same colouration as Purple Ball. I was surprised to find out that it was also Purple Ball, only a less mature plant than the others.

Purple Ball basil at the teenage stage

Most of us have heard of Everleaf Emerald Towers basil - it's an amazing variety that is tall, densely branched and late flowering. I grew this one in my own garden last year and can attest to it's amazing productivity and compact habit.

Everleaf Emerald Towers Basil
If you can only have one basil in your garden, this is the one to grow

The 'Everleaf' in the name refers to it's late flowering aspect while 'Towers' refers to the columnar growth habit.

'Everleaf' Basil (sans 'Towers') has the same late flowering characteristic as Everleaf Emerald Towers, but is noticeably less compact:

Everleaf Basil

There were a variety of interesting container displays including this one of petunias backed by a gorgeous Angelonia. The container was angled to maximize impact - ingenious!

When I asked one of the employees what their favourite plant in the garden was, they pointed to a little bunch of ferny green foliage which I couldn't quite place. I was surprised to find out it was a marigold.

Dropshot Marigold
The innocuous ferny foliage holds a sweet surprise

The foliage was very pretty - I was quite taken by the chartreuse colour & beautiful texture - but I didn't see the 'wow' factor that turned this into a garden favourite out of the dozens of other plants in the trial garden. Perhaps it was the blooms that had yet to emerge? Or maybe it was especially good at deterring pests?

Then I was told to pick a few leaves & give them a taste. First you are hit with a distinct anise flavour - and then...POW! The incredible finish blew me away. It was SO sweet - as if the leaves had been sprinkled with sugar - I'm not kidding!

Everyone that tasted it chewed for a few seconds before their eyes lit up with amazement. I decided there and then that this one was going on my list. What do the flowers look like? I have no idea, lol. I'm thinking they are fairly innocuous as I couldn't find any images of this variety blooming, even after a bit of googling.

It was a true pleasure visiting Bonnie Plants and, as always, a learning experience. While I do have a larger garden and don't *need* smaller plants, I'm nonetheless eager to try out some of the diminutive tomato varieties as well as the Patio Perfect cucumbers in containers. Imagine going out to the deck and picking a cucumber or tomato for a salad without even having to put my shoes on. Sounds pretty awesome if you ask me.

Happy Gardening!

Visiting Young's Plant Farm (Auburn, Alabama) - Part 2

2024-06-21T06:30:00.004-04:00

In Part 1, I provided an overview of my visit to Young's Plant Farm. This post focusses on their trial gardens - they were huge! We *only* had a couple of hours there, but I literally could have spent all day exploring.

The gardens include trials of shade-loving plants as well as those that appreciate a full sun exposure.

Shade-loving plants are trialed under the huge pergola

There were also container trials...

...which included a number of hanging baskets.

I have a large, shaded front entrance so it's not surprising that I'm a huge fan of coleus. When I saw this one, I was immediately smitten:

Coleus 'Skeletal'

Just like anyone else, I have my plant preferences. One of the joys of touring trial gardens is that, despite a particular plant typically not being a favourite, I will often find one or two varieties that I unexpectedly like. For example, while I love plume & spike celosia, I'm not usually a fan of those with 'brain-like' blooms. 'Hot Topic Reef' turns out to be an exception.

Celosia 'Hot Topic Reef'

Calibrachoas, however, are a favourite, regardless of variety. This one, with it's hot pink edges, was a stunner:

Calibrachoa 'MiniFamous Uno Ember Eclipse'

And while I rarely find a Calibrachoa I don't love, when it comes to Petunias, I'm rather particular. Most of them I'm not especially fond of, but these guys fall in the 'Love' column:

Petunia 'Tea Purple Vein Green Edge'

Petunia 'Lo Rider Blue'

And take a look at this gorgeous combination of Petunia 'Bee's Knees' (a 2022 AAS winner!), Cuphea 'Honey Bells' and Ageratum 'Monarch Magic':

A beautiful combination!

Speaking of Cuphea, I was really taken by the diminutive bright pink flowers and glossy leaves on 'FloriGlory Diana', a 2018 AAS winner. If I didn't know any better, I would have thought it was a tiny shrub.

Cuphea 'FloriGlory Diana'

Every once in a while, I run across a plant that I've never heard of such as this Sanvitalia (aka creeping zinnia) with it's teeny tiny blooms - it was such a beautiful spiller in the container.

And just for a bit of perspective on how small those flowers are:

When it comes to full sun container plants, you can't beat Portulaca for it's drought tolerance and gorgeous blooms. The side-by-side comparisons in the trial gardens really helped illustrate the differences between each variety, especially when it came to form as some were much more upright while others were more on the ground-hugging/trailing side of things. I apparently have a thing for the orange/yellow varieties 🙃

Portulaca 'Mojave Mango'

Portulaca 'Mega Pizzaz Mango Twist'

Portulaca 'Colorblast Orange Shandy'

Portulaca 'Pazzaz Nano Deep Orange'

I spotted one of my favourite sedums in a container:

Sedum 'Sunsparkler Lime Twister'

Sometimes the plants on trial don't even have 'real' names yet, like this beautiful Marigold:

Marigold '24OIS17'

I don't think I've ever met a Salvia that I didn't like, both annual & perennial. This one, with its deep, deep purple blooms, is a beauty:

Salvia 'Sagoon Lake Omega Improved'

And finally, two more stunners:

Salpiglossis '24OSI10'

Scaevola 'Surfinia Fashion Pink Improved'

Having never grown either Salpiglossis or Scaevola before, you can bet they are now on the list. And this may be the one downside of going to trial gardens - the list of plants that I want to try is ridiculously long & it just keeps getting longer!

Happy Gardening!

Visiting Young's Plant Farm (Auburn, Alabama) - Part 1

2024-06-14T07:42:00.004-04:00

As many of you who follow along know, I'm sort of a plant geek. So when an opportunity presents itself to hang out with other plant enthusiasts & check out some behind-the-scenes action in the horticulture industry, I'm all in.

In early June, I attended the National Garden Bureau's 2024 Summit in Auburn, Alabama. And, of course, since I had not been to Alabama before, I was more than happy to add another pin to my travel map 😊

We toured a variety of different locations: The Rane Culinary Center rooftop garden at Auburn University, the new headquarters of Bonnie Plants, Botanic (an incredible space that fuses the owners horticulture and culinary passions) and Young's Plant Farm, which is the focus of this post.

Founded in 1961 by Gene Young, Young's Plant Farm is a family run growing facility that operates 56 acres of greenhouses in addition to 40 acres of outdoor growing space.

Young's Trial Gardens

Whenever I tour production facilities, I'm always impressed by their scale and efficiency but one of the things that really blew me away about Young's was their focus on sustainability. Let's start with the soil mix. In an effort to reduce peat usage, 40% of their mix is ground up pine which is produced in-house.

Newly planted containers filled with Young's soil mix

Pine trees are grown & harvested on their own tree farms and - this is what I found truly amazing - they chip the ENTIRE tree - branches, bark, needles - everything. The resulting chunky mix is then delivered to their facility and loaded into a hammer mill where it's ground down into a fine texture, after which it's loaded into large bags and allowed to age for 30 days before it's used.

The hammer mill can be seen in the distance (middle of photo)

Young's has always considered itself a steward of the land. In fact, it was recycling water back in the late 80's when conserving this valuable resource was barely a blip on the general public's radar. Today, they use an impressive water filtration system to recycle 100% of the water used in their operations. City water is used in only a few limited instances such as in restrooms, ice makers and when propagating by seed. Everything else uses well and/or recycled water - which is amazing considering the scale of their operations.

There were a few other 'wow' moments as we toured the facility. For example, their greenhouses - pictured above - have retractable roofs so that plants are acclimated to outdoor conditions while still allowing for protection during severe weather.

Spotted: A beautiful stand of moss along the driveway near their facility

Alabama has a unique growing environment, having the same heat and humidity of Florida with the added challenge of occasional frosts. Young's started it's trial gardens 12 years ago with the goal of finding the best varieties for homeowners, including those who live in the mid-south.

Currently, Young's is trialing 432 single varieties of plants which are conveniently grouped by genus so that comparisons can be easily made.

There were a LOT of plants that caught my eye in the trial & display gardens, including some All-America Selections winners that I'm also growing in my own garden this year:

Impatiens 'Solarscape XL Pink Jewel'
2024 AAS Winner

Celosia 'Orange Flame'
2022 AAS Winner

Verbena bonariensis 'Vanity'
2022 AAS Winner

And since this is the National Garden Bureau's 'Year of the Angelonia', I couldn't help noticing a couple of particularly lovely Angelonias in the Guardian Angel series:

Angelonia 'Guardian Angel Blue'

Angelonia 'Guardian Angel Berry Sparkler'

Part 2: More plant highlights from Young's Trial Gardens.

Interesting Perennials I'm Growing from Seed (Part 2)

2024-04-26T12:25:00.004-04:00

In Part One, I spoke about 11 different perennials that I'm growing from seed. While the species and/or variety may have been new to me, all were plants that I had grown in the past successfully.

In this post, I'll be talking about a few plants that I've never grown from seed before. I'm always up for experimenting so am super excited to try them out. I don't, however, have any misconceptions that it will be smooth sailing. Perennials are general a bit trickier to grow than annuals so I'm not expecting 100% success - but no matter what happens, I'll have learned something, right?

Lobelia speciosa 'Starship Blue'
I'm growing perennial Lobelia from seed after
getting this one into my garden last year and LOVING it!

All of the perennials listed here were winter sown, which I consider the 'lazy' way of starting perennials. It's also, in my experience, a bit more of a gamble than starting plants indoors under more controlled conditions. My thought was that I would first try winter sowing for these new-to-me plants and, if that didn't work, then I would try conventional indoor stratifying/sowing next year (I held back some seed for all of these varieties for that very reason - the proverbial 'don't put all your eggs in one basket' type of thing).

Note: While a whole lot of my seeds this year came from Botanically Inclined, this is not a sponsored post. In fact, the folks at Botanically Inclined don't know me from Adam and I purchased all of my seed online, just like anybody else. Every year I pick at least one seed house, above and beyond my 'regulars' such as Baker Creek and William Dam, to grab varieties that I can't get elsewhere. Then I will go through their entire catalogue to see if there are other varieties that I want to grab while I'm at it (last year, I went a bit crazy at Swallowtail Seeds). This year, it was Botanically Inclined's turn, prompted by a search for the elusive 'true' Viola labradorica.

Primula cortusoides

After reading glowing descriptions of Primula in one of Christopher Lloyd's books, I knew that I had to find a way to get some into the garden. So when I saw this one at Baker Creek with those gorgeous purple-pink flowers, I snapped up a packet of seeds.

Photo Credit: Baker Creek Seeds

P. cortusoides is a clumper whose long, slender stems get to be 8-10" tall. I have a feeling this may not be the easiest perennial to grow from seed, but I'm always up for an experiment. It prefers a shade to part-shade spot and is hardy from zone 3-8.

Clematis integrifolia

Clematis from seed? I hadn't ever thought of that. Just like the Primula, I have a feeling this one will be a challenge....but maybe not. While it may not be commonly grown from seed, that doesn't mean that it's difficult to grow.

Photo Credit: Botanically Inclined

C. integrifolia is not a climber but a bush type, so no trellises to worry about. I actually added a white bush clematis to the garden last year and am now anxiously waiting for it to peak out of the soil. C. integrifolia prefers full sun to part shade, grows 18-30" tall & is hardy from zone 3-7.

Veronicastrum virginicum

I have both the species as well as a named variety of Veronicastrum in my garden ('Lavender Towers') & I love them both. As with most plants on this list, I hadn't ever considered growing it from seed so when I saw this listed on the Botanically Inclined website, I thought I would give it a try.

Photo Credit: Botanically Inclined

Veronicastrum virginicum grows 4-7' tall (in my garden it settles in at around 5') and has a 2-4' spread. It needs full sun, blooms in mid to late summer and is hardy in zones 3-8.

Delphinium exaltatum (aka Tall Larkspur)

I only have one Delphinium ('Guardian Blue') in my garden & it was actually a "mistake". When I purchased it, it was basically a small pot of leaves & it was amongst pots of hardy geraniums. Having no experience with either hardy geraniums or delphiniums at the time, and with their leaves being rather similar, I thought it was the former, only discovering my error after the fact. Well, it was a fortuitous mistake as it brought me so much joy when it bloomed.

Delphinium 'Guardian Blue'

Delphiniums do readily self-seed (or so I've heard - we'll see if I get seedlings) so I'm hoping that growing this one from seed will be "easy".

Delphinium exaltatum
Photo Credit: Botanically Inclined

D. exaltatum grows 4-6' tall, prefers full sun & is hardy in zones 5-7. It blooms from July to September. I also have a couple of other Delphiniums that I started indoors, but they are cultivated 'named' varieties (and they are doing great!).

Vernonia gigantea (aka Giant ironweed)

This native perennial has been on my radar for a few years now and was on my perennial purchase list for this year. It's a back of the border plant, growing up to 8' tall, with gorgeous purple blooms in August & September that pollinators go gaga over. When I saw the seed in the catalogue, it was a no-brainer.

Photo Credit: Botanically Inclined

Vernonia gigantea prefers full sun to part-shade and average to moist soils. It's hardy from zones 5-8.

Lobelia siphilitica (aka Great Blue Lobelia)

This one is another North American native, that attracts plenty of pollinators and is also deer and rabbit resistant. Now, while I don't have issues with deer (knock on wood!), the local rabbits do enjoy my garden. I'll be testing out L. siphilitica in one of the backyard beds as they have a lot more rabbit pressure than those in the front garden.

Photo Credit: Botanically Inclined

Lobelia siphilitica does best in a full to part-sun location, although it does prefer a bit of protection from the blazing afternoon sun. While it likes a moist, even soggy spot (it actually tolerates up to to 3" of standing water!), it does fine in average soil conditions as well. At a height of 2-3', it's perfect for the middle of the border. L. siphilitica blooms from late summer to fall and is hardy from zone 4-9.

Lespedeza violacea

Another native? I'm sensing a trend here😉. I had never heard of Lespedeza before I stumbled across it when browsing the Botanically Inclined seed catalogue. It's found in dry areas on the edges of woodlands, meadows and prairies.

From the photo, you may be able to tell that it's in the pea family. It's relatively short, topping out at about 18", prefers part shade to full sun and blooms in early summer. It attracts bees and butterfly's and is drought tolerant once established. Since it's a legume, it fixes nitrogen in the soil and, as an added bonus, it develops seeds that are then eaten by a few species of birds. Since it's closely related to peas, I'm wondering if this one is equally delectable to rabbits. I'll have to keep that in mind when deciding where to put it - I'll likely end up testing it out in a couple of different spots.

Since it's the end of April, I'm patiently waiting - with bated breath - for my winter sown seedlings to start peaking out of the soil. Of all the varieties I've spoken about in these two posts, only a few have surfaced so far: 'Alan's Pride' echinacea, Penstemon barbatus and Primula cortusoides. I'm confident I'll be seeing more green popping up as the weather warms. My neighbors probably wonder what the heck I'm doing as they see me crouch over my winter sowing bins every morning, intently searching for new signs of life. Not that they would be surprised - by now they don't think twice about my weird garden antics.

Happy Gardening!