34 New Flowering Annuals to Brighten Up Your Product Mix
Consumers will soon have the opportunity to experiment with colorful, big impact blooms in their containers and landscapes, if some of the new annual introductions for 2017 and 2018 are any indication. They offer good uniformity, strong garden performance, compact habits, and continuous flowering, as well as vibrant, colorful blooms that will stand out in the garden. Many of them also take heat and humidity, holding up well during the harsh conditions of hot, summer weather. Here are 34 new introductions for 2017 and 2018 to consider for your product mix.
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African Marigold 'Cheerleader' (Floranova)
‘Cheerleader’ is a dwarf African marigold with massive first flowers. Holding petals tightly together, ‘Cheerleader’ is a good performer over a range of climates. It fills out a pot, color bowl, or garden bed with ease thanks to its masses of large pom-pom blooms held sturdily on the densely branched habit. Thick stems and continuous flowering through the harshest heat of summer make it a good choice for landscape professionals and home gardeners alike.
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Alternanthera ‘Purple Prince’ (PanAmerican Seed)
‘Purple Prince’ is the first compact seed Alternanthera — an easy-to-grow alternative to vegetative varieties. It is a durable carpet of ruby/burgundy that is ready to take on summer’s extremes, including drought and rain. Gardeners will find it very versatile as a ground cover, accent in a spiller mixed container, or on its own as a specimen.
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Bacopa ‘Scopia Gulliver Pink’ (Danziger “Dan” Flower Farm)
‘Gulliver Pink’ expands the giant-flowered Gulliver series with lovely pink blooms and exceptional heat tolerance. Early flowering and well-branched, Pink showcases extra-large flowers on a beautiful trailing habit. It performs well in full sunlight or partial shade. This vigorous variety is excellent for boxes, beds, mixed containers, and hanging baskets.
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Begonia I’Conia Series (Dümmen Orange)
With masses of elegant, vibrant flowers that persist season-long, the I’Conia line of hybrid begonias is an exciting production choice for the 2018 season. Showcasing dark, clean foliage, and strong branching, these new begonias feature a neatly mounded, compact habit. They work well for high-traffic showcase containers. ‘I’Conia Miss Malibu’ and ‘I’Conia Miss Montreal’ represent the future of begonia breeding with shade to part-sun tolerance, flower-power, and strong consumer performance. (Pictured: 'I'Conia Miss Montreal')
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Calibrachoa Conga Series (Ball FloraPlant)
The compact habit of the vegetative Conga series is perfect for pot-tight production, and no plant growth regulators are needed. Plants are uniform, with a superior hold at retail. They are a great choice for quarts, color bowls, and window boxes. New for 2018 is the Kiss varieties, with a deeper center for added appeal. (Shown: Sunset Kiss and Deep Yellow)
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Calibrachoa Cruze Control Series (Green Fuse Botanicals)
An exciting update to the Cruze series, Cruze Control lives up to its name —, Control! Early to flower, tight internode spacing, and uniform bloom time make Cruze Control well-suited for production from 4-inch pots through hanging baskets. This complete 16-color series means growers can stick with one series to answer all their color requirements. Huge flowers on all colors and deep eyes on the ‘Cruze Control Orange Delicious’ (pictured) stand out at retail. The controlled habit means little to no plant growth regulators, cruising the growers to an easier finishing.
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Calibrachoa ‘Million Bells Butter Pop’ (Suntory Flowers)
Brighten up your calibrachoa line with ‘Million Bells Butter Pop.’ Inspired by buttered popcorn, plants produce a beautiful mound of pale, yellow flowers with bright-yellow centers.
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Candy Tops Snapdragon Series (Sakata Ornamentals)
The strong stems of Candy Tops snapdragons make for better shipping and retail appeal. These snapdragons have an abundance of blooms on dwarf plants for constant color. Plus, they have a sweet fragrance. They’ll stand out in containers and play well with other plants in mixed containers. The series includes Orange, Red, Rose, White, Yellow, and a mix.
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Celosia Bright Sparks Series (Floranova)
The Bright Sparks series consists of intermediate height Celosia plumosa, boasting bold, bright color on densely branched plants. The massive first plumes on Bright Sparks are followed by equally large secondary plumes, creating high-impact color at retail and in the landscape. Flowers last longer before going to seed, extending the vibrancy through the end of the season.
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Coleus Main Street Series (Dümmen Orange)
Main Street Coleus is bred for reliable uniformity across the series and strong color retention even under the highest light conditions. The late-season flowering of the Main Street series allows the variegated foliage to remain center-stage throughout the growing season. With a diverse color assortment, Main Street offers plenty of versatile options for standalone or combination applications in sun or shade.
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Cyclamen ‘Halios White’ (Morel Diffusion)
Ivory white with distinctive silvery foliage, ‘Halios White’ is an elegant plant with good volume and round and regular growth. It is easy to grow, and its abundant blooms have an excellent lifespan in winter. It is recommended for Christmas sales.
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Cyclamen ‘Tianis Deep Salmon’ (Morel Diffusion)
Deep Salmon is a midi cyclamen well-suited for 4- to 5-inch pots. It is a new color in the range with a deep and vibrant salmon tint on round petals. It has round and compact growth identical to the other recently improved Tianis varieties.
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Gerbera ‘Garvinea Sweet Love’ (Florist Holland)
Long-lasting passion and no high maintenance, that is what Sweet Love has to offer. The intense red Sweet Love flowers abundantly from early spring to frost and can handle all types of weather conditions. Due to its sturdiness and resistance to pest and diseases, it’s a true carefree garden performer.
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Gerbera ‘Garvinea Sweet Memories’ (Florist Holland)
With its soft pink color and a touch of white around the center, ‘Sweet Memories’ may look sweet and cute, but it’s a tough one. ‘Sweet Memories’ has great garden performance and a high resistance to pests and diseases. It shows a rapid splitting of the plant into more and new shoots, from which numerous flowers pop up. This results in a massive amount of flowers blooming on a plant at once.
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Hypoestes phyllostachya ‘Hippo Rose’ (Proven Winners)
This group of super-sized, vegetative Hypoestes is big, bushy, and won’t bolt into flower soon after planting. These varieties were selected against flowering/seed set and have an upright habit, making them suitable for use as a thriller or filler in containers and landscapes. Use them like you would a coleus. Polka dot plants will grow in any amount of sunlight, surviving heat and humidity with ease. ‘Hippo Rose’ has bright-rose, pink and green-spotted foliage.
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Lavandula stoechas ‘The Princess’ (Plants Nouveau)
‘The Princess’ was bred in Australia and has blooms in the most intense shade of pink found on the market. Plants are early flowering and have a beautifully pungent lavender fragrance. Selected for the intense flower color and long season of bloom, this new plant is compact, neat in habit, and covered in flowers. The highly aromatic gray foliage is the perfect foil for the perfect pink blossoms.
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Ornamental Pepper ‘Onyx Red’ (American Takii)
‘Onyx Red’ is a 2018 All-America Selections award winner. Plants are vigorous yet maintain their neat, compact, well-branched habit. Diminutive black foliage provides a striking contrast to round, red peppers. ‘Onyx Red’ is a wonderful plant for beds, borders, containers, and dramatic mass plantings. These ornamental peppers work well for a potted plant program, as well as for an annual bedding plan where earliness and retail readiness are important factors.
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Pentas Lucky Star Series (PanAmerican Seed)
Lucky Star has the fastest follow-up blooming of any pentas on the market. It has vibrantly colored blooms on lush, full-looking plants that are perfect in combinations, containers, or landscapes. Pentas is an easy-care flower with high durability and attracts butterflies to your pollinator garden. The Lucky Star series is available in six colors in 2018.
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Petunia ‘Evening Scentsation’ (American Takii)
‘Evening Scentsation’ is a 2017 All-America Selections award winner. It’s a medium-sized multiflora type petunia with a low, spreading habit reaching a height of 4 to 8 inches and a width of 30 to 40 inches. Plants produce an abundance of flowers, which have a scent similar to hyacinth and are eye-catching with shades of indigo.
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Petunia Headliner Series (Selecta)
This vegetative petunia series is a great choice for hanging baskets or patio containers. It has good vigor and distinctive blooms in plenty of fashionable colors, patterns, swirls, and stars. The mounded habit boasts large-size flowers and easy-to-maintain garden performance. New colors for 2018 include Pink Sky, Blueberry Swirl (shown), and Lipstick.
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Petunia QT Series (Green Fuse Botanicals)
Petunia QT has been bred to hold their tight uniform habit without the use of plant growth regulators. This gives QTs a longer selling window, so growers have more flexibility on when plants must ship to customers and how they hold up on retail shelves. The QT series is completely GMO-free including ‘QT Orange.’ Rounding out this full-color series are the 2017 introductions of Blue, White, and Yellow. QTs work well in any container from 4 to 14 inches.
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Petunia 'Success! Silver Vein' (Benary)
'Success! Silver Vein' petunia is a new addition to the earliest trailing petunias series from seed. This unique pastel color is great for mixes, pots, or hanging baskets. The large flowers and uniform timing and plant habit fit in well with the rest of the series.
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Petunia ‘Surfinia Trailing Red’ (Suntory Flowers)
Rev up your reds with the new ‘Surfinia Trailing Red’ petunia. As a gorgeous, premium trailer, it offers larger flowers, brighter color, and outstanding garden performance.
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Phlox Gisele Series (Selecta)
Bred for reliable rooting, heat tolerance, and large, attractive flower clusters, Gisele Phlox has been trialed all over North America. It is a strong performer in all areas — great in gardens, continuously producing colorful blooms. The series is available in five colors for 2018. (Shown: 'Gisele Hot Pink')
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Platycodon 'Pop Star Pink'
'Pop Star Pink' exhibits some of the best branching and uniformity in plant habit in Platycodon, and it works well for potted plant programs. It is also available in Blue and White.
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Portulaca Pazzaz Nano Series (Danziger “Dan” Flower Farm)
The Nano Series has a compact and moderate habit with big, beautiful flowers. This easy-growing, low-maintenance series includes four intense, vibrant colors for the summer garden. ‘Pazzaz Nano Orange’ (pictured) features a semi-trailing, compact habit and sizzling orange blooms.
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Rex Begonia ‘Rondeau’ (D.S. Cole Growers)
‘Rondeau’ is an improved small leaf Rex Begonia. The look of this begonia is similar to what some call a Tiger Leaf Begonia or a Tiger Kitten Begonia. ‘Rondeau’ is new breeding, which has more vigor and is easier for the consumer to grow.
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Salvia ‘Mysty’ (Ball FloraPlant)
Mysty is a naturally compact vegetative salvia that is 25% to 35% less vigorous than ‘Mystic Spires,’ making it a better choice for mixed containers. It’s covered with the same true-blue flowers all season and attracts pollinators to the garden. It also performs well in the heat for late-spring or summer programs.
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Salvia ‘Love and Wishes’ (Plants Nouveau)
Deep maroon stalks hold many deep purple tubular flowers that bloom and last all summer long and into the fall. ‘Love and Wishes’ is the perfect, easy-to-grow plant for new gardeners. Use it in a porch or patio pot on your deck or patio for stunning all summer color. Cut the fading flower stalks off whenever you see one and another will grow in a few days.
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Senecio ‘Angel Wings’ (D.S. Cole Growers)
‘Angel Wings’ is one of those plants that people can’t keep their hands off because the leaves are so soft and velvety to the touch with a silver, white shine. Plants are only produced by tissue culture. Although they are not a true perennial, these plants still look good outside in the fall at 20°F.
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Snaptastic Scarlet Orange (Syngenta Flowers)
Snaptastics are the next generation of multi-season snapdragons. They have reduced sensitivity to day length that allows for faster flowering in early spring, creating an easier crop to program. These vigorous plants have sturdy branching habits and are quick to fill containers. They stand up to the environmental challenges of warm season production for late summer/fall sales.
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Sunflower ‘Sunfinity’ (Syngenta Flowers)
Sunfinity is the next generation of sunflower that offers nonstop blooming, multiple branches, and more flowers. It provides incredible consumer value with superior branching and produces multiple flowers per plant. Sunfinity is a facultative long-day plant offering fast crop times that is well-suited for late spring and early summer.
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Thunbergia ‘Tangerine Slice A-Peel’ (Proven Winners)
Easier to handle than most rambunctious Thunbergias, this more restrained selection is vegetatively produced and has an increased shelf life and sales window for growers and retailers. It makes an excellent climbing component for combinations paired with other vigorous varieties and is beautiful in monoculture, as well. Orange and yellow bicolor flowers with black eyes dot the bright-green foliage all season long. Use these plants as a quick screen for patio trellises, chain link fences, and mailbox gardens. They require a trellis in Royale containers.
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Zinnia Profusion Series (Sakata Ornamentals)
‘Profusion’ is a go-to series for disease resistance and uniformity and a good performer in the greenhouse, at retail in containers, and in the garden. Heat and drought resistant, ‘Profusion’ is an excellent choice for the landscape, as well. Mix any of the colors in the series, including singles and doubles, in packs or pots for added interest. The compact habit and flower quality of Profusion zinnias combined with vigor and exceptional disease resistance contribute its strong performance and habit in all climates. Orange, White, Red, and Cherry are All-America Selections Gold Medal Winners. Cherry and Red are also Fleuroselect Gold Medal Winners.
View all
African Marigold 'Cheerleader' (Floranova)
Alternanthera ‘Purple Prince’ (PanAmerican Seed)
Bacopa ‘Scopia Gulliver Pink’ (Danziger “Dan” Flower Farm)
Begonia I’Conia Series (Dümmen Orange)
Calibrachoa Conga Series (Ball FloraPlant)
Calibrachoa Cruze Control Series (Green Fuse Botanicals)
Calibrachoa ‘Million Bells Butter Pop’ (Suntory Flowers)
Candy Tops Snapdragon Series (Sakata Ornamentals)
Celosia Bright Sparks Series (Floranova)
Coleus Main Street Series (Dümmen Orange)
Cyclamen ‘Halios White’ (Morel Diffusion)
Cyclamen ‘Tianis Deep Salmon’ (Morel Diffusion)
Gerbera ‘Garvinea Sweet Love’ (Florist Holland)
Gerbera ‘Garvinea Sweet Memories’ (Florist Holland)
Hypoestes phyllostachya ‘Hippo Rose’ (Proven Winners)
Lavandula stoechas ‘The Princess’ (Plants Nouveau)
Ornamental Pepper ‘Onyx Red’ (American Takii)
Pentas Lucky Star Series (PanAmerican Seed)
Petunia ‘Evening Scentsation’ (American Takii)
Petunia Headliner Series (Selecta)
Petunia QT Series (Green Fuse Botanicals)
Petunia 'Success! Silver Vein' (Benary)
Petunia ‘Surfinia Trailing Red’ (Suntory Flowers)
Phlox Gisele Series (Selecta)
Platycodon 'Pop Star Pink'
Portulaca Pazzaz Nano Series (Danziger “Dan” Flower Farm)
Rex Begonia ‘Rondeau’ (D.S. Cole Growers)
Salvia ‘Mysty’ (Ball FloraPlant)
Salvia ‘Love and Wishes’ (Plants Nouveau)
Senecio ‘Angel Wings’ (D.S. Cole Growers)
Snaptastic Scarlet Orange (Syngenta Flowers)
Sunflower ‘Sunfinity’ (Syngenta Flowers)
Thunbergia ‘Tangerine Slice A-Peel’ (Proven Winners)
Zinnia Profusion Series (Sakata Ornamentals)
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Janeen Wright is former Editor for Greenhouse Grower. . See all author stories here.