Favorite New Proven Winners Introduction . . . Must I Choose?

Asking my favorite new introduction for 2012 is a little like asking a mother the name of her favorite child. I’ll endeavor to pick only one, but I may have to fudge just a bit.

For example, there are the daylilies. I grow ‘Ruby Spider,’ a great “grower” with a nine-inch, jewel-tone flower with petals wide open and flat showing its entire face and yellow throat. I also have ‘Primal Scream.’ I searched for this cultivar for a very long time before I found it. How fortunate that it will now be available to everyone! Both of these daylilies are the stars of my June garden.

However, by mid-summer, there is that moment when the daylilies stop blooming, and you need something to carry you into fall. I find grasses fit the bill, and my current favorite is a red switch grass, or Panicum virgatum,  called ‘Cheyenne Sky.’ Doesn’t its name just conjure visions of a time and place where the Cheyenne once roamed freely beneath a larger-than-life, blue sky?

In spring, blades of blue-green and red emerge and stretch like lightning toward that firmament. By late summer, the same foliage turns brighter red and gold. Once it blooms, it tops out at three feet, which isn’t too tall for most gardens. I don’t know a better grass for framing the view. Because it’s perennial, ‘Cheyenne Sky’ will return each season, slowly growing larger over the years.

Although I have trouble choosing my favorite new Proven Winners introduction for 2012, I can say with assurance that all three of these new intros are winners in my book. Plant either daylily in front of, or next to ‘Cheyenne Sky’ red switch grass, and trust me . . . you won’t be able to control your enthusiasm either.

 ^© Proven Winners, LLC