Just in time for spring planting, 10 exciting new vegetable and flowering seed varieties have been chosen as 2017 All-America Selections (AAS)! These represent the most adaptable and successful new varieties for home gardens across the continental US.
If you are new to gardening, AAS Winners are the sure-fire success choices you will want to start with. Each AAS winner has been extensively trialed in gardens in many different climates and conditions, so you know they aren’t going to collapse at the first heat wave or cold snap in your garden. The AAS began during the Depression, when times were very hard and most Americans still grew at least some of their own food. Not a penny could be wasted on a finicky plant, so an independent group formed to evaluate new seed varieties and make recommendations for home gardeners.
We love AAS varieties because they are grown from seed with no special treatment whatsoever — which means the first-time gardener is as likely to be successful with them as the seasoned pro! Let’s take a look at this exciting new crop of winners.
Fennel Antares Hybrid
Sometimes a variety wins the AAS because of one significant improvement, such as quicker maturity or resistance to a stubborn disease. Antares, however, demonstrates so many improvements in all areas that it might as well be a new species! It’s the first fennel ever to win AAS honors, and here is why:
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sweeter bulb flavor
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earlier maturity
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stronger fragrance
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lusher foliage
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better bolt resistance
Whether you grow it for food or to attract vistiors such as swallowtail butterflies (who depend on fennel as a food source during their caterpillar stage), Antares is a fennel every gardener should try!
Pepper Sweetie Pie and Chili Pie Hybrids
This pair of baby bells has to be described together, even though you will probably want to grow them in separate areas of the garden (or widely spaced containers on the deck) to keep from confusing them! Sweetie Pie is a sweet bell, while Chili Pie is sweet when green, but becomes hot and spicy as it fully ripens to red.
Both varieties arise on very compact plants, just 2 to 3 feet high and wide. These bells aren’t the long, slender type you see in the supermarket — they are plump, thick-walled, flavorful minis, with all the crunch and juiciness of their full-sized cousins. Sweetie Pie can be picked green, yellow, gold, or fully ripe at red — the flavor will be identical at all stages. Chili Pie, on the other hand, acquires heat as it turns red.
Great in containers or the garden, these 2- to 3-ounce fruits arise generously, maturing about 2 months after transplant. Give them sunshine, heat, and water, and they will repay you with deliciousness!
Petunia Evening Scentsation Hybrid
Look out, Petunia Wave! Here’s a spreading variety with rich indigo blooms (by the thousand), each deliciously scented with notes of hyacinth, honey, and roses. The fragrance is noticeable at all times, but in the evening it really comes into its own, perfuming any outdoor space delectably all night long!
Just 5 to 8 inches high but ready to trail 3 feet long, Evening Scentsation is also suitable for garden beds. You can mound up the foliage and create a lush, low-growing display that will turn the walk from the driveway to the front door into a scented paradise. And of course, no Petunia is more alluring for windowboxes, where the fragrance can escape into the house on warm summer nights!
We predict that Evening Scentsation is going to be a blockbuster, so order this multiflora now!
Pole Bean Seychelles Hybrid
And while you’re planning your container garden, consider this climbing bean. We know, it seems crazy, but Seychelles is actually suitable for large flowerpots and planters! In the garden it climbs up to 9 feet high, in containers it may be more restrained, but either way, it finishes fast and even produces multiple crops if the beans are picked promptly!
Straight, stringless, tender, and flavorful, these pods are best harvested at just 5 to 6 inches long, when they are at their succulent best. Their shape makes them perfect for canning, but they may never make it to the jar — Seychelles has that rich, true bean flavor you just can’t find in store-bought crops, and you may just gobble it all down fresh off the vine!
Tomato Midnight Snack Hybrid
An indigo cherry tomato with incredible yields, Midnight Snack packs a huge wallop of antioxidant power into just half an ounce!
This indeterminate cherry tomato plant is a huge, sprawling, over-the-top nonstop producer all season, the one you can always count on for a handful of fresh tomatoes when everything else in the garden has been picked. Try to wait until the little round globes turn purple, however — the darker they get, the more anthocyanins (the disease fighter) they’re packing for your good health.
Penstemon Twizzle Purple
The Twizzle series is just knocking other Beard-tongues dead with its amazing performance! Last year’s Scarlet won the Fleuroselect (the European equivalent of the AAS), and now Purple has swept both the Fleuroselect and the All-America Selection! Here’s why this native American perennial is so impressive:
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Purple is entirely new color for the family, a rich shade of lilac-violet that has never been seen before, and is absolutely gorgeous.
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Both Twizzles flower the first year from seed, unlike older varieties of Penstemon.
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The plant has about twice the blooms and half the foliage of the species, for a much more beautiful display of color.
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A valuable nectar source for many pollinators, Twizzle brings in butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds.
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Twizzle is open-pollinated, so you can save seeds or let the plants self-sow in your garden. -
As a native perennial, it’s vigorous and disease resistant, with good tolerance of drought and poor soil.
