This Year's Winner: Evolvulus ‘Blue My Mind’

Evolvulus ‘Blue My Mind’ won by a landslide this year

A BETTER BLUE

As voted by our Field Day panel of judges—all the attendees—the favorite plant for 2019 is Evolvulus ‘Blue My Mind’. It won by a landslide and we have to say we can understand why. For summer bloom in a stunning shade of blue there is nothing like Evolvulus.

Although we admire the flowers for their exceptional blue color and all-summer performance, we normally don’t grow any of the species or the usual cultivars. Generally, the blooms are too sparse, the flowers are too tiny, or the plant is too unreliable for greenhouse production. ‘Blue My Mind’, however, is the first variety we’ve seen that buyers will actually want—it denotes a significant improvement to the genus.

This cultivar from Proven Winners is the gold standard for Evolvulus—it’s a good example of better breeding. ‘Blue My Mind’ has a controlled habit that is not leggy or lanky. Stems rise up off the ground to give a little height to the blue flowers. It has superior blooming vigor, giving us a much better carpet of dead-on true blue. For that matter, it has better vigor in general, and survivability in the garden, than the usual Evolvulus.

‘Butterfly’—a lush carpet of color to brighten up the August landscape

August blahs set in when all the spring color disappears from the garden but summer plants are not yet in bloom. To remedy this we recommend a tried-and-true cultivar that delivers an easy carpet of butter yellow daisy flowers—the short plant with the long name, Argyranthemum ‘Butterfly’.

While some call it the Marguerite Daisy, we simply call this plant reliable. It grows about 18 inches tall and wide, and the foliage is covered with a dense carpet of blooms that have mini Nilla Wafer cookie eyes. ‘Butterfly’ stays in bloom from now until frost. In landscape beds we set it in front of vertical plants like Cleome ‘Clio Magenta’, but it’s also effective as a straight groundcover or as a specimen in a beautiful piece of crockery.

Yellow daisy flowers have eyes that resemble mini Nilla Wafer cookies

We’ve noticed that the breeders have improved the cultivar considerably over the past decade. It has a lot more flower power than it did back then, so if you haven't worked with ‘Butterfly’ recently you should give it a try. It has turned into a tough, drought-resistant plant that can handle the water deprivation of the summer months. Some of our Field Day attendees talked about ‘Butterfly’ sailing through the summer with heavy color coverage even though the irrigation lines were broken for a couple of months.

Argyranthemum ‘Butterfly’ is shipping now in the 4.5 and 6-inch pot sizes.

Intriguing variegation is the hallmark of Ornamental Corn

Striking variegation in the leaves is what sets Zea ‘Field of Dreams’ apart as an Ornamental. Each sword-like blade has a prominent white stripe running down the center but what is even more intriguing is that just the edge of the blade is tinged pink. Notice the graceful arch of the leaves—they have a rippling type of flow that might even be considered spooky if you’re looking ahead to Halloween. If you work with dark grasses like Pennisetum ‘Vertigo’ or Millet ‘Purple Baron’, ‘Field of Dreams’ makes a natural companion in the landscape.

Ron gives some height expectation for ‘Field of Dreams’

Ornamental Corn is a stately creature, as Ron points out in one of his demonstrations. It reaches about five feet tall in a landscape bed but stays in the three to four-foot range in containers. We use it as a centerpiece with some Ipomoea ‘SolarPower Black’ or ‘SolarPower Lime’ around the base, for an Ornamental Corn and sweet potato thriller/spiller combination.

We grow this variety in the 4.5 and the larger 8-inch pot sizes.