New Perennial Plants

One of my favourite plant introduction nurseries is a Dutch operation called Darwin Plants. They have just put together a marketing package that bypasses the traditional marketing programme - instead of moving their new plants (some fantastic varieties I love in my own garden) through big wholesale nurseries, they are packaging them up and selling them to smaller nurseries in what they call a "sampler pack". This means you can go to your small local nursery and tell them to contact Darwin - (or Beelen Bulb Co., Florasource Ltd., McHutchison and Vandenburg Bulb Inc. their distributors) and these small nurseries can now obtain a sampler of these brand new introductions.

This is great news for the small local nursery that was never able to get these great plants.

I will tell you that when the Darwin catalog comes out, the sales teams at every major wholesale perennial nursery stare and drool over their new introductions - trying to convince the production teams to grow them all. :-)

Check out this European website if you want to see what's on the way to your garden center next year.

In an effort to be honest here - I should also explain that Darwin sends me a sampler package every year to try all of their new perennial plants. I trial all these plants in my garden and then photograph and report on them.

p.s. the picture is Helenium 'Chelsea'.