2/1/2025
Creative Combos
Jennifer Polanz
Every year in our container issue, besides highlighting cool new decorative pots, we like to highlight new options for what to put in those pots. We continue to see unique mixes both in recipes provided by breeders and in multi-stick liner options that give growers an easy way to achieve that full, lush look. Besides looking pretty, many of these combos have an added benefit, too, whether it’s thriving in heat, attracting pollinators or standing up to intense rains. Here are just a few examples of new introductions. (Go to the companies’ websites for even more recipe and container ideas.)
Ball FloraPlant
MixMasters Passion Project thrives in the throes of summer as a colorful recipe of heat- and humidity-tolerant varieties for sun that also attract butterflies and pollinators to the garden. MixMasters can be ordered as multi-stick liners so growers are assured a balanced combo for baskets and premium patio containers. The varieties in Passion Project are:
• Angelonia AngelMist Spreading Dark Purple
• Lantana PassionFruit
• Scaevola White Sparkle
Danziger
Danziger offers the DuraBella combinations program, with each recipe carefully curated to make sure the plants work well together. And they are trialed and tested to make sure they look good all season. Many combos in the program feature pollinator-friendly varieties. In this Watercolors mix, the plants have a compact growth habit and are sun-lovers. Plants include:
• Verbena Vanessa Compact Bicolor Rose
• Calibrachoa Ombre Pink
• Petunia Ray Sunshine Improved
Proven Winners
You can always count on Proven Winners to design beautiful mixed combinations, and this year is no different. In the Ireland combo you can find a refreshing mix of award-winning varieties proven to perform beautifully together in part sun to sun. This basket will bloom from spring to fall, and you can use the plants below in a hanging basket. Or add Graceful Grasses Queen Tut Cyperus as a suggested thriller for an upright container.
• Bidens Goldilocks Rocks
• Lantana Luscious Basket Tangeglow
• Calibrachoa Superbells Over Easy
Sakata Seed America
Standing Ovation, which features a bright contrast for early spring sales, uses SuperCal Premium petunia genetics to deliver all-weather performance, surviving unexpected late frosts, rainy-wet cycles and the high heat of summer. These genetics require no deadheading and have full sun, spring-to-fall flower power that bounces back after a heavy rain. Featured plants are:
• SuperCal Premium Bordeaux
• SuperCal Premium Purple Dawn
• NEW SuperCal Premium Pink Mist
Darwin Perennials
This Silver Glow combo will not only attract your customers’ eyes; once on the porch, patio or in the garden, it is sure to attract the eye of pollinators, as well. Highlighted by the silver of the centaurea and flanked by structural coneflowers, this mix of perennials is like a shining torch in the garden. Silver Glow features:
• Kniphofia Glowstick
• Polemonium Golden Feathers
• Echinacea Sombrero Adobe Orange
• Centaurea Silver Swirl
• Echinacea Sombrero Granada Gold
Syngenta Flowers
The Kwik Kombos Violet Riot Mix features a stunning magenta petunia base peppered with delicate rose-colored petunias and airy lobelia. It’s perfect from early spring into summer and loves the sun. Violet Riot is recommended for 3-qt. pots up to 2.5-gal. hanging baskets and upright containers.
Components include:
• Petunia Sanguna Rose Vein
• Petunia Itsy Magenta
• Lobelia Techno Large Blue Violet
Selecta One
Perfect for the spring, the Dynamix Flirting Funtopia recipe plays on cool blues and purples with punches of pink tie-dye. The Dynamix combo program from Selecta One offers plan-o-grams for growers to craft combos with an inspired touch. Flirting Funtopia features:
• Calibrachoa MiniFamous
• Uno Funtopia Blue
• Calibrachoa MiniFamous
• Uno Funtopia Pink
• Calibrachoa MiniFamous
• Uno Double White
Ball Seed
Looking for a larger, fuller mixed combo? Color Volcano fits the bill. It’s an explosion of color that will impress in sun or shade locations, and all the components complement each other while giving a shimmering texture to the mixture. Plants include:
• Asparagus meyerii Foxtail
• Premium Sun Coleus Coral Candy
• Lamium Beacon Silver
• Begonia Dragon Wing Red Bronze Leaf
• Alternanthera Purple Prince
• Interspecific Impatiens Solarscape Magenta Bliss
Suntory Flowers
These combos are suggestions featuring new 2025 consumer introductions from Suntory. They are heat lovers, so put them in full sun in the summer and watch them thrive. Sun Parasol FiredUp Orange Dipladenia and Sun Parasol Original XP Bluephoria Mandevilla both make unique thrillers for upright containers. Components here include:
• Dipladenia Sun Parasol FiredUp Orange
• Catharanthus Soiree Double Orchid
• Mandevilla Sun Parasol Original XP Bluephoria
• Mandevilla Sun Parasol Original XP Sunbeam