In addition to these flowers there are great new foliage plants available. The first thing I learned about Persian Shield, Strobilanthes dyerianus, was that it was an old-fashioned plant newly become fashionable again. I sure wonder why this one fell out of favor? It is incredibly colorful. The long, highly textured, lance-shaped leaves have a metallic purple sheen and dark green veins and edges. Check out the foliage on the three newly popular sweet potato vines now available. Blackie is deep blackish-maroon, Marguerite is frankly chartreuse and Tricolor is green, white and pink. They are very handsome no matter how you use them. Then there are all the new cutting-grown coleus varieties that are so far superior to most of the old seed-grown strains and can take more sun too. They also are much slower to go to flower, so you don't have as much maintenance. Last summer, I had a bushel basket planted with herbs and yellow marigolds. Late in the season the marigolds gave out and I replaced them with some yellow-leaved coleus I found still available. That basket got more favorable notice than it ever did with marigolds.
The Proven Winners are the product of a lot of research and breeding work with new plant material to bring the best of it to your local garden center. It is a business enterprise first, but they don't make money if they don't please the customers their success shows customers are interested. Now other groups are beginning to produce their own introductions. We are the winners in this game.
