Transatlantic award winners – Ornamental Pepper and Agastache
February 21, 2012
OK, back to my short series looking at award winning seed-raised plants from both sides of the Atlantic, next up is an ornamental pepper and a first-year-flowering perennial Agastache. For more on All-America Selections and Fleuroselect, see my earlier post.
Ornamental Pepper 'Black Olive'
All-America Selection Ornamental Pepper 'Black Olive' is an ornamental variety with three ornamental features and three uses. Firstly, the foliage which opens green but soon turns dark purple and it may be enlivened by green flashes. Then, there are small purple flowers and they mature into small, more or less tubular fruits which stand up from the branches to show themselves off. In colour, they begin green then turn purple and mature to fiery red.
'Black Olive' reaches 10-24in/25-60cm high and can be used as an ornamental container plant, the branches can be cut for indoor arrangements and the hot fruits can be used in the kitchen.
Search for suppliers in North America
Search for suppliers in the UK (none yet…)
Agastache ‘Astello Indigo’
Fleuroselect Gold Medal winner Agastache ‘Astello Indigo’ is a first year flowering hardy perennial with slightly minty flavoured foliage and long spikes of pale blue flowers opening from dark blue buds.
Making bushy and well-branched plants which reach about 20in/50cm high and 14in/35cm across, the result is a slightly rounded, compact plant which never looks unnaturally dumpy and which produces flowers on side shoots and not just at the top.
Flowering from July to October from a spring sowing, plants should come into flower about four months after sowing, depending on the temperature at which they’re grown.
Plants are unusually attractive to bees, and can be used in sunny borders and large containers.
Search for suppliers in the UK (none yet…)
Search for suppliers in North America