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US: National rankings out for new plants

By some counts there are thousands of new garden plants introduced to the market each year. Some are patented, trademarked and bundled up in neat little purple containers bearing the name of some marketing company and promoted on the cover of Martha Stewart magazine. Some slide in under the radar to enter the market at a low roar. Others are the collectors’ specialties that require the talents of Sherlock Holmes to locate in the dark corners of the garden world.

With all these new plants hitting garden center shelves each year, how does a gardener hope to separate the wheat from the chaff? You could assume that any nursery going through all the work to develop, identify and introduce a new plant variety would certainly go through the work to make sure it is a worthwhile introduction in the first place ... but, in many cases, you’d be dead wrong.

Luckily, when it comes to annuals and vegetables, there is one resource out there that can help. All America Selections is an independent, non-profit organization dedicated to conducting national trials of new garden flowers and vegetables and introducing the best performers as AAS Winners. Since 1933 AAS has engaged cooperators across the nation to test and rate plants for vigor, bloom, productivity and other characteristics. Following the year-long trial, AAS releases their list of winners, plants of which can be found in garden centers the next year. Starting in 2013, AAS began issuing a list of regional winners as well, further fine tuning the program’s value.

Click here to read the complete article at www.courier-journal.com.
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