9 New Cool-Season Annuals For 2016 [Slideshow]
Now is the time to start planning for which annuals will be on display at your garden center in 2016. Check out this slideshow of breeders’ picks for their favorite new cool-season varieties for the garden retail market in the coming year.
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Calibrachoa ‘Superbells Holy Moly!’ (Proven Winners)
‘Superbells Holy Moly!’ is a vigorous grower that becomes blanketed with bicolor blooms splashed with deep rose pink and yellow hues. Its markings are quite consistent and have enormous impulse appeal. This variety has been screened specifically for resistance to Thielaviopsis and does not require deadheading to bloom all summer.
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Snapdragon Snappy Tricolor Mix (Hem Genetics)
New for this year, the Snappy snapdragon tricolor mixture in Hem’s popular dwarf series is comprised of varieties with three colors in each flower. Snapdragons are amazing attractors of bees, and the dragon jaw evolved to be a landing pad for bees. Plus, they have a wonderful bubble-gum scent.
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Pansy ‘Cool Wave Blue Skies’ (Wave)
This mid-blue pansy will grab those early-bird shoppers. ‘Cool Wave’ pansies wake up spring gardens and baskets with easy spreading color. It is supported by a full program of Cool Wave packaging and POP. Get DIY projects and videos online to inspire your customers.
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Nemesia PenPals Princess Mix (PlantHaven)
PenPals Princess Mix features large bicolor flowers in rich purple, pink and white tones with bright-yellow eyes. It has a vigorous, rounded habit and is ideal for 6-inch pots, containers and baskets. It has a long flowering period, eight months in Europe.
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Pansy Inspire Plus Series (Ernst Benary Of America)
Inspure Plus has excellent seedling quality, short flower stems and beefy plants that fill the pots before flowering. Inspire Plus winter over well in most climates. These large-flowered, non-fading varieities are completely new genetics introduced as an upgrade to the large-flowered Inspire Series.
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Calibrachoa ‘Superbells Evening Star’ (Proven Winners)
‘Superbells Evening Star’ forms a perfect 4-inch pot of mounding, well-branched foliage dotted with lavender blue blossoms all summer without deadheading. Each flower has a perfect, gold, star-shaped throat backed by a deep blackish-purple eye to really make it pop. It shines in combination containers with other medium vigor varieties. This variety has been screened specifically for resistance to Thielaviopsis. Other varieties in this series include Cherry Star.
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Pansy Inspire DeluXXe Series (Ernst Benary Of America)
The XX in Pansy Inspire DeluXXe reminds us they have an extra, extra-large flower. Bred to be the most advanced breeding in XXL-flowered pansies, Inspire DeluXXe builds a beefy, well-branched plant before blooming. This supports the huge flowers and allows for a faster flush of full color.
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Tetraploid Alyssum ‘North Face’ (Floranova)
‘North Face’ is a new tetraploid alyssum with a wonderful cascading habit, making it ideal as a hanging basket or container filler. The larger, pure-white flowers and improved vigor result in a better showing at the retail stage, and the lower growing and well-branched habit is easier to handle for growers. It is available as a multi-seeded pellet.
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Viola ‘Admire’ (Ernst Benary Of America)
Growers love ‘Admire’ Violas for their outstanding pack performance, early, uniform bloom time and well-branched habit. Retailers love them because they don’t stretch and have full, beefy packs and outstanding garden performance in spring and fall. This year Benary added new colors: Blue, White, Yellow, Purple Wing and Designer Mixes.
View all
Calibrachoa ‘Superbells Holy Moly!’ (Proven Winners)
Snapdragon Snappy Tricolor Mix (Hem Genetics)
Pansy ‘Cool Wave Blue Skies’ (Wave)
Nemesia PenPals Princess Mix (PlantHaven)
Pansy Inspire Plus Series (Ernst Benary Of America)
Calibrachoa ‘Superbells Evening Star’ (Proven Winners)
Pansy Inspire DeluXXe Series (Ernst Benary Of America)
Tetraploid Alyssum ‘North Face’ (Floranova)
Viola ‘Admire’ (Ernst Benary Of America)
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Brian Sparks is senior editor of Greenhouse Grower and editor of Greenhouse Grower Technology. See all author stories here.