New Plants for 2024!

The Newest Additions to Our 2024 Catalog

Clockwise beginning at upper right:

Gervase Amaryllis: Clusters of large 7-8” wide, trumpet shaped, light rose pink to white flowers are heavily overlaid with red and deep fuchsia veining with random streaks of contrasting deep red. Each flower may be unique even from those in the same cluster. Gervase Amaryllis is a newer and quite popular cultivar that makes an easy, reliable, and rewarding spring to early summer flowering bulb that readily multiplies. It can also be forced for winter flowering as a container plant.

Hairy Sunflower, Helianthus hirsutus: 2-3” wide sunflowers with golden yellow to primrose yellow ray petals and yellow disc flowers are produced in summer to fall singly and in few-flowered clusters atop short sturdy stems attracting bees, butterflies, and other garden beneficials. This is one of the smaller growing Sunflower species whose sturdy stems are adorned with opposite, lanceolate, rough feeling, deep green foliage and the leaf pairs sit at 90o to those above or below. In its native habitat, this is a 2-4’ high, rhizomatous, colonizing, herbaceous, winter deciduous perennial that is typically found locally in dryish, sandy to loamy, well-drained soils in the Pineywoods but is found throughout much of the central and eastern US into Canada and northern Mexico. In rich fertile soils it is reported to grow as high as 5-7’ and it may be at its best where it can be allowed to naturalize as in meadows, prairies, forest edges, and roadside plantings.

Halfway to Arkansas Blue Star or Amsonia: Earned 4 out of 4 stars in trials at Chicago Botanic Gardens! Dome shaped clusters, up to 5” are wide, are composed of deep blue pointed buds that open to pale blue starry flowers and are produced in mid to late spring attracting butterflies, larger bees, hummingbirds, and hummingbird moths. Halfway to Arkansas Blue Star, an Intrinsic Perennials selection, is a clump forming, taprooted, herbaceous, native perennial with a dense bushy, almost neatly formal habit once mature and is cloaked in deep green, fine textured, narrow foliage that changes to gold tinged with purple in autumn. Amsonias or Blue Stars are tough, easy, heat and humidity loving, deer and rabbit resistant, and tolerate low fertility soils. Grows to 3-4’H x 4-5’W at maturity. Image courtesy of Intrinsic Perennials, all rights reserved.

Caesar’s Brother Siberian Iris: Nearly an heirloom but this multi-award winning Iris is still highly popular today! The flowers are composed of deep purple falls accented by deep blue veining and contrasting white signals and are topped by deep purple standards with flowers held on sturdy 36-40” high stems in late spring. The deep green narrow foliage provides grass-like motion in the garden even when the plants are not in flower. Provide Siberian Iris with an average moist to consistently moist, moderately fertile soil and they can be planted near ponds, streams, and bog gardens as well as in average moist garden and landscape settings. They generally keep the best looking foliage where they have reliable access to moisture during the growing season. Image courtesy of Walter’s Gardens, Inc., all rights reserved.

Guava Lava Hummingbird Mint, Agastache x ‘Guava Lava’ PPAF: Dense spikes of tubular coral orange flowers emerge from long lasting showy deep mauve pink colored calyxes. The flowers are produced basically from late spring to fall atop the fruitily fragrant grayish green foliage. Guava Lava Hummingbird Mint or Agastache was selected for its dense habit as well as for its ability to provide a long season of color as a container plant or in the garden and landscape. The flowers attract hummingbirds and larger butterflies. Provide a full to mostly sunny location in a well-drained sandy soil for optimum vigor and flowering as well as the plant’s longevity. Image courtesy of Walter’s Gardens, Inc., all rights reserved.

Purple Flame Blue Flag Iris: The show begins in early spring as the deep purple fans of foliage emerge from the ground eventually maturing to green and it crescendos in late spring to early summer with the plants producing deep purple, 24-30” high stems that are adorned with elegant purple, white, and yellow flowers. Purple Flame Blue Flag, a unique selection of the native Iris versicolor, was selected in 2020 as part of the American Horticulture Society’s Mt. Cuba Collection™ after literally decades of garden trials. This is a slowly spreading, clump-forming, rhizomatous, herbaceous, winter deciduous perennial that is a reliable performer under average moisture conditions, although it may be at its best in moist to wet to submerged sites like rain gardens, bogs, and near the edge of ponds and other water features. Provide a full sun to partly shaded site in a fertile soil for optimum growth and vigor. Deer resistant, a good cut flower, and requires almost no maintenance. Images courtesy of Mt. Cuba Center, all rights reserved.

Copper Iris, Iris fulva: Coppery colored falls and standards are overlaid with darker colored veining and lighten toward their bases and are produced in early to midsesaon on sturdy 18-24” high stalks. The red toned flowers are hummingbird pollinated where most other species of the Louisiana Iris group are pollinated by larger bees. This Iris species is smaller in all regards to most Louisiana Iris species and cultivars in that it produces 3-4” wide flowers with drooping petals, the rhizomes are consistently in the 3/4” diameter range, the foliage is typically less than 1” wide, and the plants top out at around 18-24” high. The Copper Iris is most commonly found in the southern half of the Mississippi River basin and along the Louisiana portion of the Red River in consistently wet to moist areas but not submerged. It has been used widely to develop red flowering crosses and is a parent of Nelson’s Louisiana Iris, a.k.a. the Abbeyville Red Iris.