A Plant for Every Season (and Reason)

Chris Beytes, Bill Calkins & Jennifer Zurko

Super Semp Sempervivum (PlantHaven)
Here’s a retail program for the popular Super Semp Sempervivum program from PlantHaven. Using unrooted inputs out of Quality Cuttings in Mexico, you can produce little 2-in. pots of sempervivum in eight weeks and then wrap them in graphic sleeves for holidays, color schemes or even branded with company names. These are perfect little gift plants and we can totally see buying them for friends and family as Christmas ornaments to hang on the tree. You can probably hang them up and not water them for weeks with no issues.

Aloe Azara (Pacific Plug & Liner)
PP&L now offers a full collection of interesting aloes under the Azara name—a perfect addition to your succulents offering. The photo shows all the interesting colors and spine configurations you can get.

Lewisia Sunset Glow (Pacific Plug & Liner)
If you like orange, you’ll love Lewisia Sunset Glow, with rich orange flowers on a drought-tolerant compact plant.

Cyclamen Metis (Morel)
Metis are all mini types, and the first new introduction in this series is Rosy Glow, a standard type with Japanese cherry blossom coloration and appearance, and a unique red stripe inside of some of the blooms. Then Metis Clochette Salmon is a mini with fringed blooms with somewhat of a bell shape (clochette means “small bell” in French). Third is Metis Indiaka, Morel’s bicolor type, which adds Magenta (pictured).

Mandevilla Divina (Selecta One)
The Divina collection has two sub-series: MegaFlora is as named—big and bold plants with lots of branching to produce big, bold flowers. It’s ideal for gallon pots or larger and starts with Red and Neon Pink. Then there’s Divina Compact, a bush-type with strong branching for lots of flowers in Pink, Red and White. Grow this one in quarts or gallons.

Tradescantia Pistachio Pink (Green Fuse)
Two years ago, Green Fuse Botanicals introduced their first tradescantia, Pistachio White, with a clean, stable green-and-white variegation. This year, we get Pistachio Pink, which has the more traditional green, purple and white coloration. Because it starts from tissue culture, the variegation remains clean and consistent instead of reverting back to plain green.

Cyclamen Sweet Lips (Schoneveld)
The big new intro for the Dutch breeder this year is called Sweet Lips—it’s a medium-spec cyclamen with beautiful two-tone pink flowers that transition from dark pink to white edges. A midi size, it’ll be excellent in 4 or 6 in. pots. And it likes cool weather, so it’s well suited to be finished for Valentine’s Day—one of the key reasons for its name.

Dianthus Supra Picotee (Hem Genetics)
Supra Pink Picotee fits the larger spec of the series of interspecifics, with excellent heat tolerance and longer bloom times. There’s an All-America Selections winner in the series (Cherry Picotee), so you can be assured it’s a solid plant for any region.

Delosperma Pickle Plant (Jaldety)
Cream, daisy-like flowers appear as it matures and it looks prickly, but it’s more tickly! (They call it Tickle Plant in Israel.)

Ipomoea Sweet Georgia White Splash (Green Fuse)
This isn’t just any sweet potato vine—it’s a white foliage type! They told us that some growers and brokers had already commented that new Sweet Georgia White Flash could be an ivy or pothos replacement or used as ipomoea normally would be in combos. The foliage is small and the plant habit looked more compact than other Sweet Georgias, but it definitely trails as you’d expect.

Monardella Monarch (Green Fuse)
Discovered growing from a crack in a rock formation in Utah and cleaned up over time, it looks like a great pollinator plant. It is clearly tough based on its native habitat and launches with two colors—Deep Red and Orange. This monardella is interesting, but it’s not for everybody—it’ll be best for the western U.S. where it’s hot and dry.

Fuchsia (Ball FloraPlant/Selecta One)
Ball FloraPlant’s new line of fuchsias features a really robust standalone called Blue Radiance (pictured), with red and violet flowers; and a somewhat smaller one called Dollarita Rose Violet. Bringing up the compact end is Bellinto, a line from Selecta with four colors—so there’s a size for everyone.

Dianthus (Selecta One)
Red Flash is the 10th color in the Zone-5 EverLast series. All of them feature a compact habit, are early to flower and require no vernalization. Capitan is the larger series and Rose + Eye is new for that series. Its thick stems make it ideal as a cut flower. And SuperTrouper Light Pink has very fragrant double flowers.

Colocasia Mai Tai (PlantHaven)
PlantHaven has been working with a University of Hawaii breeding program, bringing plants to market for 18 years and the latest intro—new for 2027—is Mai Tai, with light green, soft camouflage foliage and awesome striped stems. It’s the first striped stem in the collection. GP