Display Gardens for Field Day 2016

Get your questions ready

I’d like to take some time over the next couple of weeks to walk you through our Display Gardens for Field Day. As I’ve mentioned, we’ve been hard at work planning and planting these beds, to maximize their educational value. Take a few notes now, and compare this first glimpse to the mature plants you see up close and in person on Field Day. Start jotting down those questions, too—Field Day is meant to be an interactive learning experience for all of us. 

Gomphrena ‘Gnome Purple’

As I start my rounds today the first sight I see is a bed of brightly colored gumdrops—gomphrena. We’re showcasing eight different varieties, small to large. A lot of breeding work has been done in the last five years, so this plant comes in a bunch of different colors—we have oranges now.

Gomphrena is a great low-maintenance, no-maintenance choice. It doesn’t want to be soggy wet, but aside from that it doesn’t ask for anything. There’s no deadheading.

‘Fireworks’ display

You’ll notice that we’ve arranged this bed by height with the taller varieties in back and the shorter ones in front. That wild and woolly, meadowy-looking one in the back is ‘Fireworks’—we talked about its design potential a few weeks ago in Field Notes. The very small, tiny one in the front belongs to the Gnome series.

We have to say that, unlike Einstein’s hair, these plants have been very well behaved—even the tiny ones down front. They have smaller buttons but a lot more of them, and we were afraid they might act like unruly children. So far we’ve been pleasantly surprised. By the time Field Day rolls around they’ll be nice and full.

Looking around the bed you’ll see that these plants fall into two categories: tall gumdrops and squat gumdrops, adding two distinctive types of interest. On the far right are some plants that look like red leaf gomphrena—those are the full sun varieties. They can tolerate part sun but prefer more sun than shade.

‘Sugared Plum’

As far as the foliage goes, these plants are all pretty green—no variegation. There is one bicolor flower: ‘Sugared Plum’, with a white dusting of “sugar” on top of a plum color. This variety should sound familiar to you—we discussed it a few weeks ago in Field Notes. The breeders are working on bicolors now—that’s the next generation for gomphrena.

‘Escapade Blue’ plumbago

Now, over in the corner there’s a pretty blue plant that catches your eye—it’s ‘Escapade Blue’ plumbago, a tropical plant that we’ve grown for a couple of years. We thought we’d put some out on display to give our customers a chance to see it in action. This plant is not meant for a formal garden, you understand, but as a tropical it’s got a nice, airy feel. Plus it’s a novel color—sky blue. You might say it has a semi-phloxy feel to it but it’s a bit wild looking compared to phlox.

If you’ve only ever seen plumbago in its tiny form and not in a mature bed, we think you’ll find it very interesting. Incidentally, I see a lot of bees over on the gomphrena—you might want to make a note of that.