Summer Design with Ornamental Peppers

Colorful peppers look like strings of holiday lights

Did you ever get one of those pliers in your Christmas stocking that’s also a screwdriver, a can opener, and a fork? Ornamental peppers are kind of like that. Their assorted shapes add texture and character to a design as well as color, and sometimes we can even eat them.

‘Million Kisses® Honeymoon’

For eye-catching summer baskets we have a unique trailing begonia in deep, rich yellow: ‘Million Kisses® Honeymoon’. Now, a yellow begonia is going to capture our attention any day of the week, but this variety seals the deal with lots of big, brilliant blooms all season long—it’s one of the most vigorous trailing begonias on the market.  We like the way the flowers pop against the dense, dark green foliage.

‘Honeymoon’ brightens shade areas and requires very little maintenance—the blooms keep on coming with no deadheading necessary. It stands up to heat and drought like a true begonia. 

This variety makes a striking presentation on the retail bench—yellow is a welcome change of pace from the many pink, red, and white begonias customers are so used to seeing. As I might have said when I was a young newlywed: it’s a trip.

Yellow blooms pop

‘Million Kisses® Honeymoon’ comes in the 8-inch pot. 

Display Gardens on the grow

We’ve been hard at work planting our Display Gardens for this year’s Field Day—we think you’ll enjoy touring them because they’re beautiful and informative at the same time. These gardens provide us the opportunity to see our plants in action; we put the material in an array of landscape situations, experimenting with color variations and design styles. Each year we learn a thing or two and look forward to sharing that information with you at Field Day.

Among the beds we’ve planted this year are one for full shade—always a challenge, and a pollinator bed filled exclusively with plants from our Zoo’s Best Pollinator series. We also have a no-touch bed full of reliable, low-maintenance landscape plants—just set it and forget it! We may have been a little tired when we thought up that one. 

As we mentioned last week, we had a bit of help with the Display Gardens this year. A group of students from the University of Cincinnati Horticulture Program designed and planted a special bed for us and it’s coloring up nicely. 

Stay tuned for more updates about Field Day 2016—we’re still busy ironing out all the details.