New Plant Alert

As a full time garden writer, I often get to try new plants and play around with them before they fully get to market. This is one of the big bonus things for writing for a living I note and I do enjoy playing around with all the new stuff.

In this case, these Viva Sunpatiens will be in Home Depot stores already in the U.S. and deserve a look by gardeners.

The deal is simple. This is the first impatiens that will really take the sun. I know that New Guinea impatiens have been advertised as being sun tolerant and some garden shops have told unsuspecting customers they will handle hot sunshine but the reality is that they won't take full sun up here. And if you let them go dry for a nano-second, it looks like somebody took a blow torch to them.

But these are apparently different.

I say apparently because I've never grown them and haven't trialed them before. There are a few on the way to me from the production company and I'm looking forward to giving them a little of the good old Canadian summer heat. And then I'll report back to you about how they perform.

But for now - I'd recommend you get over to the Depot (they have an exclusive on them and they're not available anywhere else) and pick up a few. They're going to be moving faster than my man #20- Tony.