Landscapers have been shifting away from mums for several seasons now, and it is easy to see why. Pansies provide a long season of fall color with abundant blooms, then they melt away in the winter—no clean up required.

In the spring, they return with more color, allowing a busy landscaper more flexibility in spring scheduling.

A few weeks ago we attended several of the garden trials held by the growers and universities in Michigan. Garden trials offer growers like me an opportunity to see the new cultivars in their mature form, and to talk directly with the breeders and propagators about their plants.

Here are some highlights from this year’s trial gardens:

We are very pleased with the feedback we've gotten from a number of people concerning our Field Day training session. As you can see from the photos, many attended and had fun as well.

We held the training in our converted barn - kind of rustic, but it was big and comfortable for the sessions. We had (5) sessions covering design, soils, fertilizers, pests, and of course, the new varieties coming out.

Here’s a quick recipe for autumn color using three crops we have in bloom right now: calibrachoas, petunias and rudbeckias.

Use the rudbeckia as the drama in the center. Surround them with some contrasting dark petunias, then add another contrasting ring of calibrachoas to flow the color off the edges.