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Michigan Gardener | June 2015 | MichiganGardener.com
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Hosta ‘Mini Skirt’ The new millennium brought us a smallsized hosta series that started with award-winning ‘Blue Mouse Ears.’ That created a revolutionary new look in hostas for smaller gardens while giving plant collectors one more wonderful series of plants with which to create our jewel box gardens. Many years later, with 40 hostas in this esteemed lineage, we present the newest member of the Mouse Ears family: ‘Mini Skirt,’ which hails from west Michigan hosta breeder Hans Hansen of Walter’s Gardens.
‘Mini Skirt’ is a real head-turner with graygreen leaves surrounded by a wide, heavilyruffled, creamy yellow margin in spring. As summer progresses the leaves turn green and the margins lighten to a creamy white. To the delight of the hummingbirds, pale lavender flowers with deeper purple stripes are closely packed together on well-proportioned 7-inch scapes in early to midsummer. Height: 5-7 inches. Width: 13 inches. Light: Part shade to full shade.
Westflowers
Stachys/Lamium ‘Lilac Falls’
Blooms of Bressingham
Anemone ‘Pretty Lady Maria’ It’s hard to think about the garden’s fall finale during the spring but set yourself up for success with the newest addition to the Pretty Lady series of Japanese anemones (Anemone hupehensis). I love the anemone, but the size of so many take up a giant footprint in the border and that’s a commitment I usually regret. That’s what I appreciate about this tidy, compact series. ‘Pretty Lady Maria’ has an elegant, single, pure white, 2-inch wide flower with a pretty golden eye. This new introduction is both long and late blooming, finishing out the garden season in style along with hardy mums and asters. Height: 16 inches. Width: 24 inches. Light: Full sun to part shade.
At the spring trials, Allan Armitage said this hybrid (cross) was the plant that was calling everyone’s name. Stachys/Lamium ‘Lilac Falls’ is a completely different plant in that it is an intergeneric hybrid (between two different genera) of Stachys and Lamium. It has the best traits of both plants and a growing habit like the annual fan flower (Scaevola). Blooming April through autumn, ‘Lilac Falls’ is an excellent, low-growing plant with handsome lilac flowers and dark-green leaves. It hails from a German company that has been breeding plants for over 100 years. That’s a lot to get your head around, but when you see it, you will start thinking of where you will plant it in your garden. It would work as a groundcover to suppress weeds while giving some long-season color to a border. You could use it as an interesting container component or by itself in a hanging basket. It would be amazing in two urns flanking an entrance or on the patio of a windy lakeside garden. The stems are strong and have a great branching habit, plus the plant is heat tolerant, so it won’t fizzle out in midsummer. Hmmm…where am I going to plant this new one? Height: 17 inches. Width: 20-24 inches. Light: Full sun to part shade.
NEW PERENNIALS continued on page 22