Not much new I want to try this year but last year I tried a winner and ordered more seeds this year. It is Gillardia Arizona red shades. It is a low growing--12 inch plant loaded with large red daisy like blooms that flower all summer. I intend to use it as a border around my flower bed

Deutzias - I LOVE these shrubs and have been campaigning hard for a comeback for these and philadelphus. Particularly loving the dainty D.gracilis, D.sezchuenensis var. corymbiflora and D.elegantissima....along with some of the hybrids such as Rosalind, Mont Rose and the delicate D.ningpoensis (spellings might be dodgy). I am also craving a deep pink slender deutzia x hybrida, 'Strawberry Fields'.

Have more than a passing interest in angelica gigas (although it is proving a swine to germinate) as I have always loved the umbellifers. New to me this year - cenolophium denudata and selinum wallichianum.
Finally have space to try out some of the brighter elders such as sambucus racemosa and such.
Cephalanthus - have only come across C.occidentalis (which failed to excite me overmuch) and also have only experienced Callicarpa bodinieri 'Profusion'.....which, given the scarcity of berries, was something of a misnomer.

Re: Deutzia: At my other house, I had dwarf variety "Nikko" and I *loved* it! Was a gorgeous mound of pure white when it bloomed in the spring, and was a nice tidy mound of green foliage the rest of the season. This is the only deutzia with which I have experience.

I'm trying butterfly flower from seed (Asclepias incarnata), I saw the seed packets on the rack and thought what the heck.

I really, really want bergenia "Tubby Andrews" but can't locate any. Have you guys seen this one in any US catalogs/websites this year?

Other than that, can't think of anything else - I'm in annual flower gear right now, have to order my seeds so thinking about the plan for that.

-mxk3, think I linked you to this before, but Sequim Rare Plants offers lil' Tubby.
CMK

rouge21, I have not had experience with any of those plants. I did want to mention though that IâÂÂve tried two other varieties of Sambucus, âÂÂBlack Beautyâ and âÂÂSutherlandâÂÂs Goldâ and they didnâÂÂt last long in my garden. They just didnâÂÂt thrive at all. So I havenâÂÂt been inclined to try more. I would like to try a native elderberry for the berries, because I donâÂÂt think the new cultivars are really bred for berry production, are they?

The only catalog IâÂÂve had time to look at is the online rose catalogs and have already made orders. I decided to try more roses for some open space in my small section of full sun. For some reason, they won out over more perennials. I am adding more perennials in the shade though.

So, I just did a quick look of what was new on the Bluestone Perennial site. I didnâÂÂt see a shrub I was interested in, but they do have the âÂÂWinter Jewelsâ series of Hellebores, that look very good. I already have a couple of those and theyâÂÂve done well.

Not a lot of 2014 catalogs out yet, are there?

Also adding blueberry bushes this year. Another couple of hollies and maybe a few taxus for a shady corner where they have done well and I want more. Pretty common fare, but I will look for a new tall narrow holly. I already have âÂÂSky Pencilâ in another location and IâÂÂm enjoying those.

I added a new Philadelphus last year. âÂÂBuckleyâÂÂs Quillâ which is a double that is very pretty, but I didnâÂÂt detect much fragrance, which was a disappointment. I would love to find a very fragrant cultivar. Especially one that was not tall and gangly.

I have an old common Deutzia that was here when we moved in and it is very easy and care free, but it blooms once a year for a few weeks, has no fragrance, no fall color. In a small garden, everything has to earn it's spot. (g) Easy and carefree is nothing to sneeze at though, so if there were other attributes bred into the newer varieties, IâÂÂd probably take a look at them.

I have a lot more looking to do the rest of January.

CMK: THANK YOU !! I did go to Sequim's website last fall to find the bergenia, but I didn't see how to order, I thought they did not ship. Now I see my mistake - will order ASAP. :0)

I have grown two Deutzia, Nikko and Chardonnay Pearls. Yuki Snowflake is supposed to be an improved Nikko, with more flowers (I personally don't see how any more flowers would fit on my Nikko) and better form. I am happy with Nikko, but would have to see them side by side to see if I agree that it's an improvement. D. Chardonnay Pearls does have nice chartreusy spring foliage, but in its current spot of half day sun and then bright shade in my garden doesn't stay really bright all season, though it does stay less true green than many of the surrounding plants. It doesn't bloom quite as fully as Nikko. D. Cherry Blossom sounds nice, with same the same short stature and pink blossoms. Deutzia is in my opinion a one season shrub, with its full spring flowers, but is a small green blob the rest of the growing season and a fine-textured twiggy blob during winter. I am not sure if I would grow Deutzia if I had restricted space, but since that isn't an issue for me, it is a shrub I enjoy, is disease and insect free, and takes virtually no maintenance in my garden. It does suffer some tip dieback in years of less snow, so needs a bit of light pruning some years.

I have grown several varieties of Sambucus, S. racemosa Sutherland Gold and S. nigra Black Lace, plus unnamed species plants of both. My Black Lace as well as both species have been healthy and trouble free in the two years I have had it. The jury is still out on Sutherland Gold. It came as a small mail order plant and isn't in an ideal spot, but it has survived so far in its two seasons in the yard. I have read that at least some of the yellow foliaged plants are somewhat less robust, but time will tell on mine. S. Lemon Lace is a new plant, so I think only folks who test plants will have grown it, but from reading it looks like it has a good chance to be a great plant.

Here's S. Black Lace

I'm not going to be terribly adventuresome this year. The last couple of days I've been starting my lists from the catalogs received and am pretty much sticking with what I decided last summer. So far nothing else has screamed WOW! - MUST HAVE! to me.

I did a lot of garden design and layout soul-searching last summer and don't want to get side-tracked from the process begun back then. Yes, I'm buying more plants, but nothing terribly interesting in the grand scheme of things. More delphiniums, more helenium, more dahlias, more mums. It's just a matter of color choices right now. Let me spend another summer focusing on overall design and maybe I'll be in a different place next year.

Kevin

I love Angelica Gigas (unusual, architectural) and the bees and wasps love it too. Campanula, I initially grew mine by winter sowing shared seed.

Now I let some seed ripen and fall each year, but trim back blooms on most plants hoping to extend their (otherwise biennial) lives. I've had plants return using this method.

I also love Angelica gigas! The striking burgundy umbels attract an enormous amount of attention from both garden visitors and beneficial insects. Problem is, it does not love me back and I have trouble keeping it alive. It seems to be susceptible to some sort of rot/wilt disease in high temperatures and the few surviving plants I had this past summer looked healthy and beautiful but didn't seem to set much seed. Ruth_mi, what kind of soil do you grow it in? What light exposure?

To get back to the original topic, I can't think of any new 2014 introductions that are truly exciting to me yet. I am ordering plants, but they are mainly repeats of plants I already have as I expand and redo beds. I plan on adding some new hellebores and daylilies this season, as wells as lots of beneficial insect-friendly plants like Calamintha, Pycnanthemum, alliums and hardy geraniums (again, all repeats).

One umbellifer that does do well for me is an old perennial root vegetable called skirret (Sium sisarum). It has formed a mannerly, slowly expanding clump about 3 feet tall with ferny foliage and wonderful white Queen Anne's lace-type flowers in July and August. The flowers attract lots of pollinating insects and the flowers themselves are graceful and beautiful. I have ordered a few more roots of this, along with some starts of double white Saponaria officinalis (vigorous but so much more lovely than the species or the double pink form) from Perennial Pleasures Nursery in Vermont. I am excited about that!

Ispahan,

My Angelica are in super-bad soil that's pretty much opposite of the "deep, moist, loamy" soil that I see recommended. The clay is hard enough in that area that it's somewhat difficult to dig. I've been trying to add organic matter on top of the soil, hoping to eventually improve it, but it has a long way to go.

The area is where I can water it, but definitely not moist in general. It's also under the canopy of a swamp white oak, although the oak's been limbed up to allow more light. (The tree is coming down this winter, so I hope I don't lose my Angelica!)

The Sium sisarum you mentioned sounds very interesting; I did a quick search on it and will be reading more.

I had a lathyrus moment last year and ordered numerous perennial and annual varieties.....so am looking forward to L.venetus, L,aureum, L.niger, L.rotundifolia, L.vernus, L.tingitanus, L.sativus, L.venosus, L.chloranthus, L.bellinensis, L.sylvestris and L.rotundifolia.....along with a great swathe of various L.odoratus.

Also went on an insane tree sowing mission - I think I have sown around 40 species.

I have no experience with any of the shrubs that you listed,rouge.

I just purchased several Salix alba 'Flame' from a good on-line co. I saw this shrub featured in a recent gardening magazine and am adding it to a riparian buffer area(hopefully!).

Thanks all of your for posting. I will try to find spots for an

"Angelica Gigas" and a DEUTZIA.

campanula, have you seen this variegated variety of Deutzia called "Creme Fraiche"?

Here is a link that might be useful: New Deutzia

New to me Rouge. I admit to being fairly ambivalent about variagation and have very few examples apart from the obvious hollies and a rather good dogwood (elegantissima). The inherent weakness of variagated leaves always pulls me up short (since I am a fitful and negligent gardener). Course, I have been a sun gardener for a decade now so I expect to be changing my habits now I am faced with shady woodland (where I can definitely see a role for all those bread and butter shrubs such as euonymous, which, in my constrained space, I have sniffed at in the past).
We do get PW and even Terra Nova plants here in the UK but having been wedded to seed for ages (as well as being both broke and cheap) I rarely venture forth into catalogue listings.
I did, however, save seeds from a fabulous variagated angelica archangelica I saw growing down a track last year......