Nov 11, 2014
Top Varieties at Raker Trial Gardens

Winter is just around the corner and once your holiday plants are out the door it’ll be time to begin production for spring 2015! It’ll be here before you know it!

You may rely on trial data to decide which plants to add to or subtract from your production, so that’s why I’ve been sharing some of the latest trial results with you the past few weeks. I’ve already covered Colorado, Texas and Kansas. Today I’d like to travel a bit northeast to Michigan.

The trials at C. Raker & Sons are some of the most thorough and impressive in the country. Each year, more than 1,500 individuals visit the gardens, which offer more than 5 acres of row trials, sponsored showcase beds and hanging basket trials. The 2014 Raker Trial Gardens tested more than 2,000 unique plant varieties and well over 65,000 individual plants!

The following varieties scored a perfect 5 out of 5 in this year’s trials:

Argyranthemum ‘Beauty Yellow’ (Westflowers)

Begonia ‘California Sunlight’ (Selecta)

Begonia EXP G13S-609 (Garden Genetics)

Canna ‘Fire Dragon’ (Hort Couture)

Coleus ‘Kingswood Torch’ (Athena Brazil)

Coleus ‘Redhead’ (Ball)

Coleus ‘Walter Turner’ (Jaldety)

Gomphrena ‘Fireworks’ (PanAmerican Seed)

Lantana ‘Bandana Trailing Gold’ (Syngenta)

I think it’s pretty neat that multiple coleus varieties scored so well after all, 2015 has been named Year of the Coleus by the National Garden Bureau. Are you growing any of the above varieties? How have they been performing for you? Will you be adding any of them to your production for next season? Shoot me an e-mail at jdolce@greatamericanpublish.com, and let me know. I’d love to hear from you.

Jasmina