Easter Rush 2016

Tulips in many colors

Easter is fast approaching—clients will be looking to stock up on material for the holiday and spring open houses. Everyone’s itching to get back in color after the long cold winter, so here’s a rundown of what’s prime in the greenhouses:

A selection from our Zoo’s Best Pollinator program

‘Northern Lights® Lavender’ is part of our Zoo’s Best Pollinator program. We find customers like it as much for its soft, subdued shade of lavender and delicate star-shaped flowers as they do for its ability to attract butterflies. Plants are simply covered with clusters of these beautiful blooms all summer.

Pentas has been part of our spring lineup for a few years now because it thrives in extremely hot, dry climates, like what we experience here in Cincinnati in the high summer. ‘Northern Lights® Lavender’ is unique in that it blooms just as freely in cool temperatures as it does in the heat. Plants keep on flowering until temps hit the 60s and even the 50s—a real breakthrough in breeding for pentas.  

Generally we’ve seen great improvement in pentas over the last several years as a result of the new genetics; performance is better among newer cultivars, with greater uniformity of habit and bloomtime. This is important in the landscaping arena, because knowing what a plant will look like at a particular stage of the game makes it easier to plan a design. 

Flower heads are bigger on some new varieties as well. You’ll notice that ’Northern Lights® Lavender’ has larger flower clusters than the typical pentas, reaching up to 6 inches across. Plants grow about 2 feet tall, a suitable size for larger containers and landscape beds.

Mix in some other Zoo’s Best selections for a pollinator smorgasbord. This pretty pentas pairs nicely with Zahara zinnias or any of our Zoo’s Best lantana varieties, including ‘Bandana® Cherry Sunrise’ and ‘Luscious® Pina Colada’.

‘Northern Lights® Lavender’ is easy to grow—the blooms just keep coming with no deadheading required, and it’s drought-tolerant once it’s established in the landscape.

Large clusters of delicate star-shaped flowers bloom in cool or hot temperatures

We grow this Pollinator selection in the 1-quart pot.

Yellow pansies pick up the tiny yellow bees

When you need a nice cool weather accompaniment for pansies, go with Linaria ‘Enchantment’ for lots and lots of fragrant flowers. This variety also exhibits more heat tolerance than other toadflax selections; blooms start early and keep on coming, continuously, all through the summer. A nice long season of color—now, that makes a plant valuable in our book.

Take a closer look at these unique blossoms—they remind us of mini snapdragons. Yellow pansies would be the obvious choice to mix with them, picking up the tiny yellow bees that dot the magenta, but pink and purple shades work, too. ‘Enchantment’ also pairs nicely with another fragrant early bloomer: ‘Easter Bonnet White’ alyssum.

In addition to mixed containers, we use this plant in sunny landscape beds. It’s a great companion to ‘Northern Lights^® Lavender’ and other plants in the Zoo’s Best Pollinator series—butterflies and hummingbirds love the fragrant flowers.

‘Enchantment’ comes in the 6-inch pot.