Show from January 8, 2006

Well, good morning gardeners. What a lovely day. Last night after coming home from dinner, I went for a walk in the woods near our house and it was a perfect evening. The air was as clean as a knife and the snow sounded crisp under foot as I walked. It's just cold enough now so that it feels like winter, but not so cold that you can't enjoy being outdoors.

Well, we're on the right side of winter now. The days are already getting longer and by the end of this month, we'll start feeling spring tingling in our veins. So I thought it would be a great idea to tell you about a couple of plants you should watch for this year.

One that I am really looking forward to is Hemerocallis Peach Stella, a new daylily related to Stella d'Oro, that blooms all summer long. It's a dwarf – just 18 inches tall and it's fragrant. If you have a small garden, this is one I would definitely include. The petals are slightly ruffled and a lovely peachy pink. And did you know that there is an even smaller version of the Stella d'Oro daylily? This one, called Mini Stella is just ten inches tall with a mass of yellow blooms all summer. T&T Seeds has to one called Purple d'Oro which is also a rebloomer.

And while we're talking daylilies, there is one called Navajo Princess with a very pale pink petal and a contrasting bright pink eye and a green throat. This daylily is two feet tall.

Now last summer I missed the chance to buy one of the new yellow echinaceas – you can't really call these purple coneflowers anymore, when the come in so many colours. This one was called Sunrise and Kevin Twomey from T&T Seeds brought it in. They flew off the shelves. I also missed buying the salmon orange one called sunset. But this year, there's another interesting yellow called Mango with slender drooping petals and a more prominent cone that turns darker as the flower matures.

For all you dahlia lovers out there, there is one called Brindisi that I wold love to get my hands on. It's a true powder puff dahlia with soft lavender-fading-to-white petals edged in purple. The flowers are large on 3 foot plants. And gladiola fans will fall in love with Green Star which has chartreuse green flowers on a four foot stalk.

For those of you who love herbs, there's a Trailing Rosemary, a fabulous creeping or trailing plant that will just keep on growing. It will do wonderfully in pots, but if you lived in a southern climate and planted it in a second story window box, it would trail all the way to the ground. Bring it in for the winter here in Manitoba and have fresh rosemary all year long.

There are a lot of wonderful grasses out there this year. Lots of bronze and copper coloured carexes that look great in pots. Sand if you love Nierembergia, that airy little cup shaped bloomer with its luminescent petals, there's new variety called Blue Mountain that has a spreading habit and is very heat and drought tolerant.

Hosta fans will adore the new Northern Exposure which has large, flat blue-green leaves edged in light green edges that brighten to creamy yellow.

By the way, watch for the latest edition of the Prairie Garden, an annual that is now celebrating its 67th year of publication. Although it's actually been around even longer than that. Guest editori this year is Stephen Feduik.