I heard last month’s Farwest Show in Portland, Oregon, was a superb one! And if the winners of the Retailers’ Choice Awards and the New Varieties Showcase Awards are any indication of the show attendees’ excitement and enthusiasm, I’d say I would have to agree.

There are quite a few winners to cover, but early fall is the right time to tell you all about them so you can get your orders ready for 2026. I have for you 13 plants and two products for The Garden Center Group’s Retailers’ Choice Awards and a handful more from Farwest’s own set of awards. And in the interest of space, I’ll give you a one-liner for each and contact info for more information.

Let’s start with the Retailers’ Choice Awards:

Ruby Ruffle Patio Peach (Prunus persica Ruby Ruffle) from Alpha Nursery. Part of Star Roses & Plants Bloomables collection, this is a compact ornamental tree with clusters of dark pink, ruffled flowers followed by burgundy foliage with unique wavy edges. Alpha Nursery.

Dahlia Venti Fireburst from Ball Seed. Also an RCA winner from Cultivate, Venti Fireburst is a red Dahlia with a big anemone “burst” flower pattern. Ball Seed.

Centaurea ragusina Silver Swirl from Ball Seed Company/Darwin Perennials. This perennial has distinctive silvery white foliage with wavy leaf edges and is ideal for combination plantings and front-of-the-border plantings. Ball Seed.

Mondo Grass (Ophiopogon planiscapus) Edge of Night from Iseli Nursery. This variegated form of Black Mondo Grass has a very narrow white stripe that runs down the outside of each blade-like leaf, contrasting with the predominant shiny black color. Iseli Nursery.

Hellebore Winter Moonbeam from Meridian Young Plants-JRT Nurseries. It forms bushy mounds of thick silver-gray veined evergreen leaves, and its white blooms gradually mature to pink, then near-red. JRT Nurseries.

Continued from above.

Snakeroot (Actaea simplex) Pink Spike from Monrovia Nursery. The chocolate-purple foliage on this herbaceous perennial is joined by slender, light pink and fragrant flower spikes towering above it in late summer and fall. Monrovia Nursery.

Crocosmia Dark Fire from Monrovia Nursery. This vigorously clumping perennial produces smoky purple-green foliage and red and yellow bi-color flowers beloved by hummingbirds. Monrovia Nursery.

Growth Technology GT Focus range of plant fertilizers from PlantHaul. Also winning a Cool Product Award at TPIE last January, each of the GT Focus fertilizers is designed for a specific plant type. PlantHaul.

Kodiak Jet Black Diervilla from Proven Winners. This new diervilla has dark burgundy-black foliage that is especially intense in spring and autumn, offset by bright yellow flowers in early summer. Proven Winners.

Buddleia Moptop Fountain Butterfly Bush from Proven Winners. This new buddleia has a unique fountain habit with long, weeping branches covered in clusters of pale purple flowers blooming in spring. Proven Winners.

Continued from above.

Sweet Caroline Shadowstorm Ornamental Sweet Potato Vine from Proven Winners. This new ipomoea with near-black, green-speckled leaves is a fuller form that won’t need trimming as it grows. Proven Winners.

Funky Flow Mahonia from Star Roses & Plants. This new mahonia is a vibrant, compact evergreen with bright green spring foliage maturing to a deep glossy hue in summer. Star Roses and Plants.

SaucR from TreLeaf. Also a RCA winner at Cultivate, these new leaf- and lily pad-shaped plant saucers are available in various sizes and colors. TreLeaf.

MoonShadow Morello Hardy Hibiscus from Van Belle YoungPlants/Bloomin’ Easy. This new hardy hibiscus features big raspberry-red blooms that pop against deep purple-black foliage. Van Belle/Bloomin’ Easy.

Camelia sinensis Yellow Tea from Youngblood Nursery (who also won Best in Show booth honors, too!). This highly variegated camelia is a small shrub growing to 6 ft. with shiny green and yellow variegated leaves and small yellow flowers. Youngblood Nursery.

I already mentioned that Youngblood Nursery in Salem, Oregon, won the overall Ted Van Veen Best in Show booth award, which comes with a free 10×10 booth space for the 2026 Farwest Show. Congrats!

Over at the New Varieties Showcase, Festuca arundinacea Glow Sticks was chosen by professional judges as the Best in Show winner. Discovered by Jeremy Schmidt and introduced by Bristol Briar, it was submitted by Concept Plants and is described as evergreen dark-green blades with bright-yellow flower spikelets from spring through summer. It’s 24-in. wide by 36-in. tall and is hardy in Zones 3a-9b.

Alpenglow Hybrid Maple from Iseli Nursery took home the People’s Choice Award. It’s described as a red-leafed, upright hybrid maple that is hardy down to –30 F and comes from a breeding program in search of expanding the cold tolerance of hybrid maples down to Zone 4. Alpenglow is 15-ft. wide by 20-ft. tall and is hardy in Zones 4a-8b.

Congrats to all the winners! I have a feeling it’s going to be a hard job nailing down what you want to order for next season!

Two Perennial Plant Association events are taking place soon, both with registration deadlines of next week!

The first is a webinar, “Untermyer Gardens at 14,” taking place Tuesday, September 9 at 1 p.m. Eastern. Drew Schuyler, Assistant Head Gardener at Untermyer Gardens in Yonkers, New York, will give a brief introduction to the gardens and update folks on the ongoing restoration and development of the historic property. Drew will explore the guiding principles of the restoration, talk about challenges encountered along the way, and profile some recent and future happenings in this 45-acre public garden. Registration closes September 8, which you can do HERE.

The second is the Fall Perennial Plant Symposium taking place in Madison, Wisconsin, September 19—with both in-person and virtual options. An optional bus tour of the Epic Systems Campus in Verona, Wisconsin, and the UW-Arboretum (Curtis Prairie and Longenecker Gardens) takes place on the 18^th. As for the symposium itself, it will be held and hosted at Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison.

The speakers promise to not only be whip-smart about perennials, but also wicked funny, too. One of the symposium talks will be “Poisonous Perennials and Their Secret Histories”—that’s got to be good, no? A press release on the symposium informs me that Olbrich Botanical Gardens is not to be missed in September. Review the symposium agenda, session topics, speakers and registration info HERE. And do so quickly because registration closes September 9!

If it’s (meteorological) fall that means trend forecasts are dropping into my inbox on a weekly (soon to be daily) basis. The most anticipated one for me, of course, is that developed by the folks at Garden Media Group. In fact, I emailed GMG’s Katie Dubow to see when it might be released, that’s how much I wanted to see what their research was foretelling. (“Any second!” she responded—good timing on my part!)

As I do with Garden Media Group’s Garden Trends Report every year, I’ll parse out each of its seven trends over the next few weeks, giving each one its time to make an impact on you.

But first, let’s start off with the Report’s overarching theme—lemonading. It’s a reference to a cultural shift to embracing the small joys that brighten each day. They say lemonading is a movement that “transforms challenges into opportunities through creativity, mindfulness, and joy. Amid climate anxiety and digital overload, the garden is becoming the place where chaos softens and possibility blooms.”

The Report’s first six pages explain the concept of lemonading as a place and time for play and joy in the sense of allowance of experimentation, risk-taking and resilience—and may I add, laughing at yourself and moving on.

“The horticulture industry is uniquely positioned to embrace lemonading because we’re rooted in resilience,” the Report states. “We work with living things, face seasonality, unpredictability, and failure as part of the process.” No more hiding behind the perfect garden, today’s consumers want transparency and relatability.

The Report goes on to say: “This mindset shift isn’t fluff. It’s fuel for innovation, agility and deeper connection. Our consumers are curious, resilient and eager to engage. Let’s meet them where they are and invite them to play. Because this is where joy takes root.”

I’ll include the Report’s LINK so you can download and read yourself, and I will continue with the rest of our deep dive into its key trends next week.

The Garden Center Group’s Managing Director Danny Summers recently told readers of the organization’s weekly GROUPTalk newsletter about a memorable Uber ride he and Tim Quebedeaux took while at the aforementioned Farwest Show. The reason? The driver and her story about how plants changed her life.

Long story short—Melody the driver went from homeless on the streets of Portland to a person who found her self-worth through the power of plants. Taking care of plants—watering, trimming, talking to them, finding their ideal conditions—and having them respond to her care gave her a sense of accomplishment, changed her sense of purpose and changed her outlook on life.

“It was easy to see how connected Melody was to these plants and how caring for them had transformed her life,” Danny wrote. “Her story was a reminder of how even small connections to nature can have a big impact on someone’s well-being.”

That’s the power of plants—to connect someone not only to nature but also to themselves and a sense of their self-worth. You’ve probably felt it yourself. And you give your customers access to this same power of connection. That’s exactly what the 2026 Garden Trends Report means when they talk about joy taking root.