Choosing New Plants for 2015
Posted in Horticulture on January 6 2015, by Sonia Uyterhoeven
Sonia Uyterhoeven is NYBG‘s Gardener for Public Education.
For the plantaholic, the New Year brings new vices. Fortunately, most of them are harmless and the conundrum gardeners are most often faced with is finding a good home for this year’s novelties in an already crowded garden.
One person who is always ready to play to our weakness is nurseryman Dan Heims of Terra Nova Nurseries. Terra Nova is a wholesale nursery situated just 25 miles south of Portland, Oregon; for sourcing plants from them in your area, this page will direct you to a store near you.
When it comes to color, curiosity and the “wow” factor, Heims’s breeding program has developed a formula for success. This year, leading the charge for “something completely new” is Mukgenia Nova™ ‘Flame’. It may sound like you are knee deep in sludge, but Mukgenia is actually the first ever intergeneric hybrid between a Bergenia (pigsqueak) and Mukdenia ‘Crimson Fans’.
Mukdenia (the parent) is essentially a coral bell (Heuchera) with palmate leaves. Their foliage colors beautifully as the season progresses. The green palmate leaves become tinged with a brilliant red. The only problem, here in our New York climate, is that the foliage senesces rapidly in late summer; particularly when it has been a hot summer.