Dr. Rick's - Top 10 for the freezer – USDA Zone 3
Ri Schoellhorn started at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 1975, but decided to develop a larger perspective and explored Alaska with his sister, Janine. After leaving Alaska, he moved to Colorado where he worked in various landscaping and nursery positions. In 1989, Schoellhorn completed a bachelor’s degree in horticulture at Colorado State University and later moved to Gainesville, Florida, to pursue graduate study. In 1995, he completed a doctorate degree in horticulture from the University of Florida and served as a professor, first at the Research & Education Center in Milton, then the main campus in Gainesville in 2001. “Rick had been in horticulture for a long time and had been a plant person forever. He really kicked off his professional career at UF as an educator and he was just a great educator. He taught me so much about everything, so it was really great to be able to work alongside him for the first nine months when we overlapped. The depth of his knowledge was just incredible,” Kevin Hurd, vice president of product development for Proven Winners, said. Over his career, Schoellhorn was a notable speaker, garden consultant, volunteer in the local community and even a television host. However, in 2005, he left his teaching role to pursue a new path with Proven Winners as its director of new products. Proven Winners has renamed its grower scholarship to honor him. The new name for the scholarship is now The Rick Schoellhorn – Proven Winners Grower Excellence Scholarship. It’s one of three $5,000 scholarships that Proven Winners offers to students in four-year universities. “It’s perfect because it honors Rick both as a plantsman and as an educator. He has a passion for growing and he’s worked in all aspects of the industry. So we felt it was important to memorialize him and remember his legacy as that educator and strong horticulturalist. It’s a nice gesture for the industry to keep his name going and active, and then it’s also a really nice gesture for his wife and son,” Hurd said. |
chard (“Rick”) Kent Schoellhorn, retired director of new products for Proven Winners, died Nov. 25, 2023 after a two-year struggle with lung cancer. He was 66. His California roots provided him a love of plants and that lifelong passion developed into a successful career in the horticulture industry.All too often we forget that there are gardeners in the cold north who have winters with prolonged temperatures of -40F, low or no snow but drying winter winds and soil that heaves as it freezes and thaws. That kind of a climate requires tough plants that can really handle demanding conditions. The good news is that there are a lot of options for gardeners in the freezer of the north! Here’s our top 10 groups of plants (We went a little overboard but figured you’d like to see more rather than less!).
Before we get to the plants however let’s discuss a few tips to help you succeed:
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 | Little Goblin™ and Berry Heavy® Gold are some amazingly hardy Winterberry, just as their name implies they can provide your winter landscape with rich red and yellow toned berries that are great seasonal impact as well as food for wildlife over the winter! They do best with a companion planting of a pollinator variety like many fruit tree; use the Winterberry Mr. Poppins as a pollinator and enjoy the show each year. The wild birds will love you for it! |
 | Proven Winners® Daylilies. These are tough and reliable perennials with great summer flowering and easy care. For yellow tones use 'Going Bananas', for purple try 'Nosferatu', for bright red try 'Ruby Spider' and for soft yellow double flowers try 'Siloam Peony Display'. Apply fertilizer as soon as shoots begin to appear in spring and enjoy flowers all through mid-summer and on. |
 | Lemony Lace™ Elderberry gives that lacey look and bright golden green foliage to add a visual spike to any landscape. They are easy to grow and benefit from a hard pruning each spring to encourage new strong young shoots. Graceful and similar to Japanese Maples and others that may not tolerate USDA zone 3 – you can get the same effect with a lot less work! |
 | Proven Winners® Hosta are a must have for part shade areas of the landscape. If protected from high winds they can also tolerate mostly full sun, but the big leaves really like dappled sun. We have quite a few great Hosta in our collection but there are chosen specifically for the zone 3 Gardener. Look for 'Autumn Frost', 'Goodness Gracious', 'Hudson Bay', 'Seducer', and Wheee! In garden centers near you! |
 | Celtic Pride™ Siberian Cypress is an evergreen mounding spreading shrub that looks like a juniper but performs much better in most locations. The name says it, this plant came from Siberia, and they may have invented the word cold! Celtic Pride™ has better shade tolerance than junipers as well and improved disease resistance tip die back. |
 | Proven Winners® Perennial Sedum are easy, tolerant of poor soils, don’t need a lot of water or fertilizer and to reward you they bloom in gorgeous masses of color all through fall, the old flower heads stick through the early snows and provide seed for birds. We have three in the collection: ‘Pure Joy’ which is compact with rosy pink flowers, Garnet Brocade™ with red/purple leaves, tall stems, and red burgundy flowers in fall, and ‘Maestro’ which falls in between these with a mid-range height and rusty red flowers. |
 | Happy Face® Yellow & Happy Face® Pink Paradise Potentilla. Here is a great combo of color and truly tough plants! They are both deer resistant native plants and produce flowers all summer in a haze of yellow and pink. They like full sun, but are tolerant of rocky soils but will be larger and fuller if the soil immediately around the plants is rich. Simple and trouble free! |
 | Proven Winners® Hydrangea paniculata. OK, so it’s true that the big pink and blue florist’s type hydrangeas cannot survive your winter temperatures BUT that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy some beautiful hydrangeas all summer! This group of hydrangeas is tough and completely hardy in your area. They are pruned in spring so you leave them alone in fall and let their branches provide winter interest. Look for Bobo®, Fire Light®, Limelight®, and Pinky Winky® at garden centers near you. Here’s a great breakdown of the different hydrangeas and some other great varieties you can also grow in zone 3!! http://www.provenwinners.com/Hydrangeas-Demystified |
 | Tuscan Sun Heliopsis. Warm golden flowers all through summer and into fall on a tough native perennial plant. Tuscan Sun likes full sun and rich soils where it can sink its roots deep. Put an inch or two of mulch over the plants in late fall and they expand into larger colonies with each year. A great butterfly and bird attractant as well! |
 | Fine Line® Buckthorn is another great landscape statement! Thin threadlike leaves on a strictly upright plant, Fine Line® provides a wonderful accent of deep green leaves and tightly controlled vertical growth, use it to break up a flower border or alongside the house. Easy and trouble free with reduced fruit set, which is a problem in older varieties. |
