AED Foundation & SkillsUSA Illinois Support Skilled Trades
Jessica Schwartz
AAS Perennial Winners: Perfect Additions To Any Client Landscape
All-America Selections, a non-profit plant trialing organization has three new perennial AAS Winners, which will be available in the 2023 garden season. They are: Echinacea Artisan Yellow Ombre F1; Leucanthemum Carpet Angel Daisy; and Salvia Blue by You F1. The three floral winners would be the perfect addition to any client’s landscape decor. Newest Regional Winners AAS Perennial Southeast and Northwest Regional Winner, Artisan Yellow Ombre, is a plant for anyone wanting vibrant color all season long in a perennial garden, or to use as a cut flower. This is the first F1 hybrid echinacea series that comes in individual colors. It has an intense golden yellow bloom along with graduated colors of yellow. AAS Judges were impressed with the uniform growth habit, vibrantly colored flowers, and multi-branched plants that produce a prolific number of blooms. Pollinators will flock to this echinacea, and clients will love this low-maintenance, long-blooming beauty. Hardy in zones 4a to 10b. The flora was bred by PanAmerican Seed. AAS Perennial West/Northwest and Mountain/Southwest Regional Winner, Leucanthemum Carpet Angel®, is the first-ever groundcover Shasta Daisy! Green Fuse Botanicals’ First Light Perennials is a program of first-year flowering perennials that are daylength neutral, meaning earlier blooms that continue all season long. Large three inch flowers boast a second inner frilly bloom adding to the unique look of Carpet Angel. Growing only to a height of six inches, this unique leucanthemum can act as a groundcover spreading up to 20 inches wide. Fantastic ...
Impatient for Impatiens? Your Time Has Come.
By Christine Menapace After eight long years, landscapers will soon be able to answer “yes” to clients who want to bring back Impatiens to their landscapes. With a limited launch this year and a full launch in 2020, new Beacon™ Impatiens from PanAmerican Seed offer high resistance to the downy mildew that decimated this popular plant back in 2011. They come in six core colors: bright red, violet, salmon, coral, orange, and white; as well as two mixes. “We’ve been very happy,” Beacon global product manager Lisa Lacy tells Turf. “For the landscaping market and globally there’s been a lot of loss… it was a long road bringing it back… it was a lot of diligence and cross testing… over a million plants were screened.” Of course, the only goal wasn’t just disease resistance, “it also had to be a good looking Impatiens,” notes Lacy, who experienced the heyday, decline, and now reintroduction of the Impatiens market. “I feel very fortunate to have been a part of this… it’s a product gift.” Does she expect Impatiens to reach their former popularity? She says it’s a good question and one that’s been asked a lot. “In general the feedback has been high interest,” she says. Beacon is easy to grow, and consumers already know what to do with Impatiens, she says. “There’s no learning curve.” Once a favorite of landscapers and clients alike, the shade-loving flower Impatiens walleriana fell victim to Plasmopara obducens, a water mold that led to a widespread ...
