Betwixt and Between
The newest kids on the nursery bench are a bunch of plants that look incredibly good in a $2.99, 4-inch “quart” nursery container--plants like bacopa, brachycome, diascia and the splendid new nemesias. These and their summer-blooming kin--million bells and verbena--are what could be called a new breed of bedding plants.
Though found in the bedding-plant section of the nursery (and always in the 4-inch pot size), they are not annuals, like pansies or petunias, yet they’re not quite long-lived perennials like penstemon. They’re “somewhere in between,” according to Ron Vanderhoff, nursery manager at giant, classy Roger’s Gardens in Newport Beach, and chairman of the California Certified Nursery Professionals. He has grown many of these new plants in his home garden and in the nursery’s display plots.
He says this new breed of bedding plant could be called long-season annuals or short-lived perennials.
“They’ll live anywhere from six months to three years and some will bloom the whole time.” If this sounds familiar, it’s because oh-so-common impatiens behave this way, living for a long time but not forever.
Common bedding plants, especially annuals, tend to have flowers that are very large, verging on horsy, so they may make more of an impact, especially from a distance. None of these newcomers is going to compete with a bed of yellow Bloomingdale ranunculus.
Most have surprisingly small and delicate flowers, though they have masses of them. They are best when seen up close, “when they’re right in your face,” as one nursery person put it.
It is the small size of the flowers and petite stature of the plants that makes them so useful in the garden. They fill blank spots and spill between other plants such as roses or lavenders. Some bloom mostly in the cool season (now through spring), some bloom mostly in summer and several try their darndest to bloom all the time.
The new bedding plants also are wonderful in pots out on the patio since they are scaled right, growing to about a foot tall. Most are trailing plants and will cascade over the sides. They make billowy bouquets when mixed with other plants in a big container.
These nursery newcomers are not seed-sown like most bedding plants but are proprietary, patented, cutting-grown plants, which means that those with the same name don’t merely look alike but are identical.
Best in the Cool Season
The most popular of these patented plants are the nemesias, which get rave reviews from gardeners and admiring looks from visitors. When Lauren Huber’s Thousand Oaks garden was on a tour not long ago, visitors most wanted to know about the dusky-lavender nemesias, even though the garden was full of other flowering plants.
She has them spilling out of pots on her patio of broken concrete, and in garden beds.
“They don’t need a lot of care, water or fertilizer, at least in my garden,” she said. In garden beds, she used them near the front, since they are not very tall.
A sky-blue variety named ‘Blue Bird’ is the favorite of many, including Lilian Greenup at Sperling Nursery in Calabasas.
“It blooms and blooms and blooms,” she said. “Wonderful!”
While nemesias are nearly ever-blooming, they do favor the cooler times of the year and may quit flowering in summer. Typically they live from one to one-and-a-half years. Try to tidy these new nemesias up by cutting them back, and you may kill them. Descendants of South African plants (Nemesia fruticans is a parent), they like full sun and normal watering, and grow to only 10 or 12 inches.
“They’re the perfect size for filling those holes between other plants in the garden,” said Vanderhoff, who just planted some between lavenders that were looking a little thin.
Diascias are another South African perennial that are short-lived in the garden, lasting only a year or two at most. One gardener called them “semi-perennials.”
Their foliage trails a bit more than nemesia, and the effect is more tumbling, but the short flower spikes are quite upright, with flowers colored wonderful shades of salmon and coral. Good varieties include ‘Elliot,’ ‘Redstart,’ ‘Ruby Fields’ and the new ‘Strawberry Sundae.’
In my own garden, I’ve used diascias as fillers between drought-resistant perennials that aren’t looking their best in winter.
Vanderhoff points out that many of these new bedding plants go nicely with things like sage and lavender that have become popular in today’s climate-conscious gardens. Planted with these droughty perennials, the new bedding plants seem to blend better than pansies and other traditional annuals. Perhaps it is their South African heritage. The tip of South Africa has a climate and look similar to that of Southern California.
From equally similar Australia comes a group of incredibly delicate fillers and spillers--the various brachycomes--that also go well in the contemporary California mix.
Lillian Greenup suggests brachycomes are easier to blend with other plants because of their finely dissected, feathery foliage. They have tiny daisy flowers, though some of the newer types such as ‘City Lights’ or ‘Toucan Tango’ (also called ‘Ultra’), have flowers about an inch across.
Dainty brachycomes will fill even small gaps and spaces in the garden. I’ve tucked them into clumps of bearded iris, where the dainty foliage meanders between the spiky iris leaves, the tiny lavender daisies a subtle contrast to the huge lavender-blue iris flowers.
The latest newcomers in the fillers and spillers category are the many new hybrids of South African daisy (Osteospermum and Dimorphotheca) called Dandenong Daisies and Springstar hybrids, such as ‘Purple Blush’ or ‘Mira.’ These sophisticated relatives of the trailing “freeway daisy” can flower all year long.
Not many gardeners have grown these yet, so it remains to be seen how well they fare. I’m trying one tucked into a planting of watsonia bulbs. I’d be interested to know how others fare with these supposedly tough new daisies.
While most of the above favor the cooler times of the year--from fall through late spring--there are several new fillers and spillers that favor summer.
For Warm Weather
The summer-blooming verbenas rival the nemesias in popularity, according to Barbara Brown, the bedding-plant buyer at Sperling Nursery. The Tapien hybrids have been around for several years and are great in containers.
They also make colorful, if somewhat temporary, ground covers, lasting a couple of years in the ground.
“They’ll bloom so heavily,” said Vanderhoff of Roger’s Gardens, “that you can’t see the ground through the flowers.” In his garden log, he has noted that verbenas bloom only between April 1 and mid-November, and not at all in winter. Another gardener said they look “pretty ratty” in winter.
The Tapien series were so popular at first that nurseries couldn’t keep them in stock, but now there are contenders for the verbena crown in the hybrid Temari and Babylon series.
Other popular summer-bloomers are the so-called million bells (Calibrachoa hybrids), that resemble miniature petunias, which are great in containers, according to Vanderhoff, but “are not so great in the ground.” They apparently need the fast drainage found in potting mixes and rot when planted out in the garden. He also pronounces this one a “long-lived annual,” since it seldom makes it through a winter, even in mild south Orange County.
It’s still too early to plant these fillers and spillers that prefer summer’s warmth, so wait until at least April. In the meantime, if you have any holes that need immediate attention, try nemesias or any of those that favor these cooler times of year. Many of these spring bloomers will cruise right into summer as well.
In the Garden is published Thursdays. Write to Robert Smaus, SoCal Living, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053; fax to (213) 237-4712; or e-mail robert.smaus@latimes.com.
New Fillers and Spillers
For spring bloom:
* asteriscus
* bacopa
* brachycome
* diascia
* dimorpotheca
* Geranium incanum
* nemesia
* Osteospermum
* scaevola
For summer bloom:
* evolvulus
* helichrysum
* lamium million bells scabiosa
* verbena
