2012 selections announced by Plant Select

Fire Spinner ice plant

Plant Select, a collaborative effort with Denver Botanic Gardens, Colorado State University, and regional and national horticultural professionals, recently announced six new plants to be promoted for 2012.

Cape-forget-me-not (Anchusa capensis) has trim evergreen rosettes producing a bounty of dazzling cobalt-blue flowers with fetching white eyes throughout the garden season. This perennial will naturalize with moderate self-sowing in many situations, filling blank corners of the border with luminous twilight blue. 8- to 15-inches tall and 4- to 8-inches wide, it grows well in a wide range of soils in full sun to partial shade. Hardy to USDA zones 5-10.

Filigree daisy (Anthemis marschalliana) produces a lacy mat of silvery foliage, which is beautiful through much of the year. In May and June the chrome-yellow daisies glow for weeks on end. It grows 4- to 10-inches tall (in bloom), and 15- to -24-inches tall, preferring sandy or clay soils that dry well between waterings. This tough, mat-forming perennial from West Asia will become a centerpiece of a xeriscape or dry border. Hardy to USDA zones 4-10.

Fire Spinner ice plant (Delosperma ‘P001S’) represents a dramatic color breakthrough for the hardy ice plants. The green-apple foliage makes a glistening, fast spreading carpet that keeps its shiny presence through winter. The two-toned, orange and purple flowers are massed in spring, but reappear periodically through the summer. This unique cultivar traces its ancestry to high mountains near the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Grows 1- to 2-inches tall; 12- to 18-inches wide in full sun to partial shade, in moderate to dry conditions. Hardy to USDA zones 5-10.

Weeping white spruce (Picea glauca 'Pendula'), the first Plant Select conifer recommendation, is a living sculpture for the landscape. It is a very hardy form of the boreal spruce that also thrives in summer heat. The graceful foliage shimmers, and the weeping form adds drama and texture to any setting. With its compact footprint, this distinctive specimen enhances tight landscape and garden settings. A must-have for winter interest. Grows 20- to 30-feet tall, and only 6-feet wide in full sun to partial shade conditions. Tolerates a wide range of soils, and is hardy to USDA zones 3-8.

Ruby Voodoo rose (Rosa 'Ruby Voodoo') produces spectacular, multi-toned, purple-pink double blossoms in late spring, which are repeated moderately through the summer. Intensely fragrant, its attractive habit and vigor will ensure that this John Starnes hybrid becomes a staple in the new American rose garden. Annual pruning encourages a more compact habit. Grows 5- to 6-feet and 4- to 6-feet wide in full sun to partial shade, requiring moderate water in sandy, clay or loam soils. Hardy to USDA zones 4-10.

The silvery, ferny foliage of Dalmation daisy (Tanacetum cinerariifolium) is decorative at all times, but much of the year it is obscured under a dome of shimmering white daisies. It grows 16- to 20-inches tall by 24- to 30-inches wide, blooming May to July. Aromatic and pest-free, this is an ideal perennial white daisy for drier gardens and landscapes. Hardy to USDA zones 4-10.

The mission of Plant Select is to seek out and distribute the best plants for landscapes from the High Plains to the Intermountain region and beyond. To be included in the program, selected plants should:

• Thrive in a broad range of garden situations in the Rocky Mountain region
• Be resilient to the region’s challenging climate
•  Exemplify the unique
•  Demonstrate disease and insect resistance
•  Flourish in low water conditions
•  Display a long season of beauty in the garden
•  Ensure noninvasiveness

For more information, visit www.plantselect.org.