Over twenty new woody ornamentals added to the Proven Winners® ColorChoice® collection for 2014.
Growers curating a selection of the latest breakthrough and trend-setting varieties of flowering shrubs need to look no further than the just released Spring Meadow Nursery 2014 catalog. Spring Meadow, the company behind Proven Winners® ColorChoice® Flowering Shrubs, worked with top breeders to carefully select 22 new varieties for its 2014 liner offerings. Additions include new colors for the popular Lo & Behold® line of butterfly bush and cold hardy haskaps in the edible Vitamin Berries™ collection.
“As we expand and diversify the Proven Winners ColorChoice collection, we look both to trends, like edibles, and to improving upon beloved plants,” said Tim Wood, Director of New Product Development and Marketing. “Disease resistance, hardiness, and invasiveness are always in the forefront of our minds, and it shows in the 2014 new introductions.”
The Lo & Behold® line of sterile butterfly bush expands to include Lo & Behold® ‘Pink Micro Chip’ buddleia, among the smallest of the series at 18-24” tall and wide. Petit pink blooms cover the compact plant, continuously blooming from mid-summer to frost without deadheading. The collection of dwarf, noninvasive plants include ‘Blue Chip’, ‘Ice Chip’, ‘Lilac Chip’, and ‘Purple Haze’. Also new is an improved ‘Blue Chip’ called ‘Blue Chip Jr.’, a smaller, less brittle option with attractive silver-green foliage.
A native superfruit, Sugar Mountain™ Blue haskap joins Lifeberry® goji berries in the easy-to-grow, edibles line, Vitamin Berries™. This new selection of Lonicera caerulea is hardy to USDA Zone 1 without the need of special soils. Sugar Mountain™ Blue haskap has the sweet taste of raspberries and blueberries and produces large, elongated fruit high in antioxidants. Three pollinator varieties are also available for heavier berry crops: Sugar Mountain™ Balalaika™, Sugar Mountain™ Polar Bear™, and Sugar Mountain™ Kalinka™.
Other additions include the first tetraploid winterberry, Little Goblin™; a pair of extremely Phytophthora-resistant rhododendrons, Handy Man™ Pink and Handy Man™ Purple; a sterile golden privet, Golden Ticket™; and a compact, yellow-leaved companion to Black Lace™ elderberry, Lemon Lace™.
To request the 2014 Spring Meadow Nursery catalog, more information, or high-resolution electronic photos of these plants, please contact Shannon Springer at shannon@springmeadownursery.com.
About Proven Winners® ColorChoice®
Proven Winners ColorChoice is the brand name of Spring Meadow Nursery, Inc., a market leader in flowering shrubs, potted liners, and starter plants. Located in Grand Haven, Michigan, Spring Meadow Nursery has over 500 varieties in their catalog, including over 200 varieties marketed under the Proven Winners® ColorChoice® brand. For more information, visit www.ProvenWinners-Shrubs.com and www.SpringMeadowNursery.com.
Source: Proven Winners® ColorChoice®
