Hey friends today on Gardening with Creekside I am excited to share with you a little bit of some
test results that were taking place at The Trial Gardens at North Carolina State University hence
my beautiful red shirt those are the colors of the wolf pack and so there was a lot of
really great plants that we grow here at Creekside nursery and all for our customers and because this
trial Garden happened basically in our backyard in Raleigh I wanted to share those results with
you so if you are in North Carolina if you were in the South if you're in the Heat and the humidity I
want you to look for these annuals in your local Garden Center because these were their top season
performers so it wasn't just one snapshot in time it wasn't just in one week it was over the entire
growing season that these trials took place and that they picked their top performers and
there's a lot of really fun plants on here now I do have my phone because it has my notes on here
I cannot remember all of the plants so number one at the top of the list I'm not going to go in a
whole lot of order after this one but I thought this was really interesting to start off the
um the topic with the number one top performing annual in the NC State trials was the brand new
supertunia mini Visto Visto Vista Yellow plant and so this is brand new on the market it will
be available this year 2023 we trialed it here at Creekside Nursery last year a really fun new
petunia that there are not very many out there on the market like these at all this was the first
that we had ever grown a mini yellow petunia it does really really well clearly here in the South
and the Heat and the humidity and because it is a petunia you can use it not only in containers and
hanging baskets but also in the landscape it's a lovely shade of yellow that will pair with a
whole host of different colors I used it with the new super Bells prism pink lemonade caliber KOA
and it was absolutely stunning so that's really fun to know that the very brand new supertunion
Mini Vista Yellow was a top performer in the NC State trials so look for that one in your local
Garden Center this spring next that we have on our list is the uh luscious basket tangelo Lantana and
again this is a brand new one on the market this year this Lantana is really unique in the fact
that it's habit lends itself to do really well in a hanging basket or a container because it just of
the habit of it it has beautiful shades of yellow and oranges and different kind of corally colors
in it and of course Lantana is like notoriously known to be really heat tolerant not only heat
tolerant but can handle our humidity because that is the thing here in North Carolina we don't just
have heat we have humidity and we have high nighttime temperatures and high humidity at
night so these plants especially that Lantana man it can handle it with no problem you can
use it in the hanging basket you could use it in a window box or a container here but it's
really unique in the fact of its habit it lends itself really nicely to go into a hanging basket
next on the list is the Augusta lavender this has been on the market for I believe two this will be
its second year now we trialed it in in the garden two years ago and believe it or not this plant
came back for us this year is it an area that gets full hot intense sun is not on irrigation but it
is a really unique beautiful plant it's more upright and then it has that beautiful lavender
flowers on it a really nice unique texture to your garden that would do really well like in
the middle of a flower bed because you could put something lower if you wanted to in front
of it and of course you could also have it in a container so that Augusta Lavender is just because
we had so many people were like what is that thing in fact Jerry I remember Jerry called me one day
when I wasn't down in the nursery he was like what is that thing in the trial bed because people are
going nuts over and it's gorgeous well it is that Augusta lavender just really sign a plant clearly
can do really well here in North Carolina and our heat and our humidity and then this might have
been my favorite new plant that we trialed last year it is another Lantana this is luscious Royale
lemon tart gorgeous solid yellow and it truly is like the color of a lemon so you think of that
really nice rich vibrant tones of a lemon that is what this Lantana looks like and I love the
fact of lemon tart not only because it just was a massive performer in our garden but unlike some
Lantana that I have which can get huge lemon tart was really well behaved I never pinched it back I
never trimmed it and it Formed these beautiful perfect Mounds in my garden I actually had it
right beside the driveway not on irrigation and it was I mean it gets sun up to sun down
it is nice organically rich soil that we because we've amended it over years and years and we just
did a mass planting of that lemon tart in there and had a perennial red hibiscus in the center
it was stunning and it went all the way through a hard freeze for us here in North Carolina so
that was like a november-ish and it was just a gorgeous one I'm going to use it in Mass again
this year because it was such a great performer for us so look for luscious Royale lemon tart
Lantana you will not be disappointed with this massive pollinator tractor the hummingbirds the
butterflies all the bees love this plant next we have one of my favorites you know that I am
a huge fan of the colorblaze coleus well Color Blaze Royale pineapple Brandy this was again is
relatively new I believe it's been on the market for two or three years now a huge gorgeous coleus
that performs its head off the year that we had it in the trial Garden we had one plant because
that is what we got from Proven Winners it was a one plant started out as a grande by the end
of the season it was this beautiful mass of this chartreuse color and because it is a pineapple
Brandy it has some red Hues in it the stems have kind of a red tint to them and even on the edge
of the leaf there is a little bit of red but if you're looking for a big bold pop of color not
necessarily flowers right color in your garden then pineapple Brandy is a great one and it can
do sun or shade so it does not matter what your sun conditions are are this coleus will perform
wonderful like with other kalias if you can pinch it back a couple of times during the
season then it gets nice and thick and tight and it won't get floppy like in those horrible
you know summer thunderstorms that we get and the wind comes through that way it'll be nice
and strong and sturdy and will handle those winds and the rain but pineapple Brandy is a
gorgeous plant that you need to add and look for at your local Garden Center this season
a classic plant for the South has got to be caladiums and there was one caladium on the
top performers and it was the heart to heart snow flurry this is new on the market I personally have
not grown the particular snow flurry but looking at the pictures it is going to be a looker and
since it's the only caladium that made the list of these top performers I am really excited to get my
hands on it caladiums of course are just you know iconic with the South because we have the Heat and
the humidity even areas in the country that have high heat but they are very dry caladiums don't
do well caladiums are one of those rare plants that really need the humidity to not only grow
but thrive in and so the South it certainly is not lacking any humidity so snow flurry is going to
be a really fun beautiful caladium that we know is going to perform well because it did so in Raleigh
in Raleigh for tends to be a little bit even warm warmer than we are here in Dallas even though it's
just weird but they tend typically to be able to have a little bit of a warmer climate than we do
so I'm excited to get my hands on snow flurries so if you see that snow flurry caladium in the
garden center make sure you grab it for sure because it's that beautiful white caladium that
will just pair with tons of different kinds of not only annuals but perennials in your garden as well
there were only two grasses that made the cut off for top performers and both were from proven
Winters you have the blue Mohawk and then you have the brand new queen tut both of these grasses will
be fantastic for wet areas so if you typically have an area that just historically stays wet
then both the blue blue Mohawk and the queen tut will perform great for you now blue Mohawk
is going to be more upright it's going to give you like two to three feet tall and only like
8 to 12 inches wide beautiful really kind of blue foliage to it very um uh I wouldn't say feathery
at all it's very upright to it it just is a really nice unique Habit to it and technically it will
be a perennial for us because we're a 7B and I think it's like from zones five to nine but just
a really fun nice interest vertical interest into your garden whether it is for in the landscape or
in a a container that blue Mohawk will be a great one and then of course queen tut brand
new it is the newest addition to what I call the touch family and queen tut is going to be really
nice and petite has a much more open Airy Habit to it still has the fun little Tufts on the ends
but you think of like Prince Tut Where it's really nice and dense and gets really tall the queen is
going to be shorter and more open it's really nice planted in mass in the landscape and then
it'll be really fun even in containers we had it in the water trough so you will have that clean
cut coming in and then you've got maybe a petunia intertwining in there or a super Bina or caladium
whatever the case may be and then you've got the really fun little Tufts of that queen tut coming
up out of it so both of those grasses of course do really well for us here in the South the Heat
and the humidity and then you get the extra added bonus of the blue Mohawk being a perennial so that
is a win-win situation for sure luscious Royale Red Zone Lantana was another one that made the
cutoff in those great all-season performers again we have hands-on experience with this
Lantana and it is a beautiful Lantana as its name suggests it has a gorgeous red color to it and
it will actually kind of change colors as those flowers mature really fun gives you a nice kind
of a medium-sized presence in your garden it's certainly not the shortest Lantana that they have
and it's not the biggest either but if you really like those really bold hot colors then Redstone
is going to be a great one for you to use when we had it again I keep I know I keep saying this but
because we have had such hands-on experience with these plants Proven Winners would send us them to
us and they were in Grande containers and so I would get one luscious Royale Red Zone Lantana
and so when I would plant it I it was just nothing special as far is like you know what you would buy
at your local Garden Center it was a grande just like what we grow our plants in so I stuck it in
the Ground full sun no irrigation of course you have to you know water them when they're
trying to get them established but once they were established we were hands off and we were
not fertilizing these plants like crazy because I really want to put them through their Paces to see
how they do and that Red Zone was gorgeous my mama has always read has always been her favorite color
and so I tend to enjoy red also don't know that I have a really a lot of red in my garden I love
having those big pops of color here and there but if you're looking to make a big impact then that
luscious Royale red zone is going to be a great one for you to use again late season Bloomer once
it's established it is drought tolerant is going to attract all the pollinators the butterflies
the hummingbirds you name it fantastic I also have had some personal experience with that red
zone is if you leave it in the ground I'm not saying that it is a perennial meal but if you
will leave it in the ground let the hard freeze come freeze comes if you just leave it alone I
have had it come back for me it came back for me two years before I actually had to pull it
out because it was the trial garden and I needed that space but some of these plants you can kind
of play around with even though maybe they're sold as annuals in your local Garden Center
test them out put them through their Paces see if they come back the next year you will often
be surprised that they will come back for you but it was really fun to get this list
of these plants that really perform well in NC State I don't think there was anything that we
were like shocked by because we were like oh yeah that does really well here oh yeah that one does
great too so for us it was very affirming to see that the folks at NC State and there are
Trial Gardens have pretty much had the same results that we have had here at Creekside and
we know from personal experience because we have grown all of these plants minus the snow flurry
because that's brand new and we just didn't get it last year we have had personal experience on
every single one of these plants in the garden and they all have performed really really well
for us so whether you're in North Carolina South Carolina Georgia Tennessee Virginia anywhere you
know within the southeast I mean even down into the deep south then I would really encourage
you to check out these plants because we do have such a unique growing environment here
with our heat humidity hot humid nights and just periods of like either tons of rain or no rain
right we if you know you know our weather is going to be quite challenging and these
plants have proven themselves to be really high performers here in the Southeast especially in
North Carolina so I hope you have found a plant that your have piqued your interest and that you
would like to add to your garden it's always nice to be affirmed with what your experience is with
what you know State University trials have so it's really fun as always thanks so much
for gardening with Creekside y'all have a great day and we'll see in the next video bye friends