Each year, All-America Selections, the best plant-testing organization I know, announces the plants it found to be best over the season.
They have done that as well for 2008. There are three top varieties this year, fewer than most of the years. The seed will be available for next year.
AAS is giving us a bonus this year because they are celebrating their Diamond Jubilee by announcing their five "classical" winners - those that have been great for gardeners over and over again. The five are:
E Big Beef Tomatoes, which for 12 years, has been one of the most popular tomatoes in North America and is expected to continue to be.
The 80- to 12-ounce fruit can be harvested beginning about 73 days from transplanting. It's easy to grow from seed or plants. The breeder, Seminis Vegetable Seeds, was also the originator of other prizewinning AAS winners, including Celebrity and Husky Gold Tomatoes, and Early Butternut Squash.
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E Another classic, the Ideal Violet, is a time-tested dianthus that was originally introduced in 1992. It was bred in the south of France where winter is quite cold and summer is very hot. It was an ideal location to breed a new dianthus.
I grew it for the first time last summer and though it wasn't believed to be winter hardy, but it came through and bloomed beautifully this year. The plants get about
10 to 12 inches tall and are easy to grow.
E Another of the superior varieties is UltraCrimson Star, a petunia, which produces flowers with pure white stars centered on huge crimson grandiflora flowers. The flowers are large and the stripes remain the same as one another, which was one of the aims in originating the variety.
E Most of you have seen Purple Wave petunia, or have grown it. It's one of the superior varieties. When the judges first saw it, they were amazed that it was growing rooted into the ground and growing horizontally rather than vertically.
E The last superior variety described is a pansy, Majestic Giants. It was bred in Japan and was the first pansy that didn't require cool temperatures for flower initiation. It produces bright vivid colors in a wide range of shades.
These plants may be seen growing and flowering at the AAS Display Gardens at NDSU. If you haven't seen the test gardens, you should anyway.
Readers can reach Forum gardening columnist Dorothy Collins at dorothycollins@i29.net
