Do your homework on latest offerings

Before buying a new plant, arm yourself with
information.

MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

DETROIT — New roses, new perennials, new vegetables — the arrival of 2008 plant catalogs peaks soon and the pages are filled with eye-catching descriptions, drawings and photos.

The plant catalogs provide a pleasant way to spend winter hours. And they’re a heads-up for gardeners about which new plants they may start seeing in stores in a few months, when the outdoor gardening season begins.

But deciding when “new” will turn out to be “better” than old familiar plants is tricky — especially in January, when just about anything colorful looks tempting.

Plants “are packaged and promoted in incredibly attractive ways to make us want more new things,” says Janet Macunovich of Waterford, Mich., a professional gardener and educator.

She’ll teaches a class about new plants and how to determine whether they merit a spot in your garden.

DO SOME DIGGING

Identifying which plants are potential winners requires self-knowledge as well as detective work. You have to be realistic about your soil, amount of sun and USDA Hardiness Zone. (To check a specific locale, go to www.usna.usda.gov/Hardzone/ushzmap.html.)

Sometimes a plant may be a brand-new introduction. Or it may be described as new, yet just new to that seller.

Either way, it’s hard to resist being curious about the plants, which often are grouped together in the first few pages of catalogs.

“I look through the new parts first. I’m conditioned to do that,” says Macunovich, co-founder of the Michigan School of Gardening.

During the growing season, she also checks out plants being trialed or tested at places such as the Chicago Botanic Garden. When it comes time to purchase, Macunovich says, “I’m more likely to buy from my local growers. There is someone I can actually talk to, who has grown it.”

This year, among the plants she is excited about are a dwarf goldenrod called Solidago Sweety; a dark-leaved, upright sedum that, while not brand new, has yet to become popular, Sedum Emperor, and a seedling of the Hibiscus Plum Crazy that has darker leaves and a deeper flower color.

Why do certain plants make it big? Macunovich offers Stella d’Oro daylilies and Crimson King maples as examples.

Both have good characteristics and appeal to a certain niche (long-blooming, easy to grow for Stella; site tolerance and purple leaves from the King) as well as an appealing name, she says.

Still, as far as plant introductions go, there can be spectacular crash-and-burns. A few years ago, a widely touted new red coreopsis turned out to be more of an annual than a perennial, as billed.

For a fighting chance with a new plant, arm yourself with basic information, available on the Internet or at the library.

For instance, perhaps a catalog is touting a new color of garden phlox. Macunovich points out that could be good, since garden phlox is the mainstay of the perennial garden in July and early August. A new and attractive color would be welcome.

Or it could be bad, if that new phlox is susceptible to the fungi that disfigure many garden phloxes. So “disease resistance” should be a key part of the new phlox’s description.

Mary Wilson, a horticulturist with the Oakland County, Mich., MSU Extension, buys a few new plants every year to see how they grow in her garden.

“I love to learn, firsthand, about these new plants,” she wrote in an e-mail, adding, “I try not to go overboard, though, because it could get expensive.” Before buying, she asks questions: How long has the plant been trialed, or test-grown, and where? And how does that testing location compare in zone to your region?

And Wilson looks at what makes the new plant different from others. For example, in general, variegated plants are usually not as vigorous as their green-leaved relatives, “so when you try a new cultivar that’s variegated, don’t be surprised if it’s smaller than what you are used to,” according to Wilson.

Macunovich urges gardeners, before buying a plant, to ask themselves a critical but painful question: Is there actually space in my garden for it?

If so, she recommends keeping a garden journal with an accurate description of where it’s planted and how it performs. “It takes the test of time and the test of total neglect and abuse to say, ‘That makes it.’”