Portulaca ‘Raspberry Lemonade’

Our field of candidates…

Drumroll, please…

For the past few years at Field Day we’ve had you cast votes for your favorite variety of certain plants in our Display Gardens. It’s become an annual ritual, and though you might consider it a gimmick to add some light-hearted fun to the day we actually take the results very seriously. Your votes help us determine which varieties we’ll continue to grow and which ones we’ll retire, at least for the time being. 

Portulaca ‘Raspberry Lemonade’ came in at #1

Now, we get a lot of introductory plants each year from our seed companies—new varieties that we’ve never grown before—and we trial many of them in our Display Gardens as well. We’re always curious to see what you think of these new varieties—it helps us decide which ones we’re going to grow. This year you chose a true eye-catcher: ‘Raspberry Lemonade’ portulaca. 

Based on the looks alone, we’d have to say it’s a natural choice. All of the plants in the PortoGrande™ series have large flowers and vibrant colors, and this unique bicolor is the most attention-grabbing of the bunch. Each lemon yellow petal has an intense purple stripe down the middle. When we arrived at Field Day in the early morning hardly any of the blooms had opened, but after the sun was on them for a couple of hours they started to show their colors. 

New plants have name tags so you can get acquainted with them

Portulaca is one of our favorite plants to keep in the design toolbox for summer here in Cincinnati because it thrives in our hot, arid weather. We use the brilliant flowers to brighten up rock gardens and containers for full sun. ‘Raspberry Lemonade’ has a pretty trailing habit so it fills and flows out of hanging baskets and tall standing planters. 

These eye-catching blooms are open for business

Another reason we gravitate toward this plant for summer displays: it requires very little water. Beautiful, low-maintenance color that can stand up to a Cincinnati summer—you knew what you were doing when you planted your flags in this winner. 

Your vote counts!

As we head into fall we’re monitoring all of our Display Garden plants to see how they behave. Please remember that we appreciate your input—it’s one of the reasons why we look forward to Field Day every year. Keep an eye out for ‘Raspberry Lemonade’ in the future—you have placed it on our radar.