Products
Proven Winners expands ColorChoice line

Sept. 11, 2013 — More than 20 new woody ornamentals have been added to the Proven Winners ColorChoice collection for 2014.

Spring Meadow, the company behind Proven Winners ColorChoice flowering shrubs, worked with breeders to select 22 new varieties for its 2014 line. Additions include new colours for the Lo & Behold line of butterfly bushes and cold hardy hasps in the edible Vitamin Berries collection.

“As we expand and diversify the Proven Winners ColorChoice collection, we look both to trends, like edibles, and to improving upon beloved plants,” said Tim Wood, director of new product development and marketing. “Disease resistance, hardiness, and invasiveness are always in the forefront of our minds, and it shows in the 2014 new introductions.”

The Lo & Behold line of sterile butterfly bush expands to include Lo & Behold ‘Pink Micro Chip’ buddleia, among the smallest of the series at 18 to 24 inches tall and wide. Small pink blooms cover the compact plant, continuously blooming from mid-summer to frost without deadheading. The collection of dwarf, noninvasive plants include ‘Blue Chip’, ‘Ice Chip’, ‘Lilac Chip’, and ‘Purple Haze’. Also new is an improved ‘Blue Chip’ called ‘Blue Chip Jr.’, a smaller, less brittle option with silver-green foliage.

Sambucus Lemon Lace Elderberry.

A native superfruit, Sugar Mountain Blue haskap joins Lifeberry goji berries in the easy-to-grow, edibles line, Vitamin Berries. Sugar Mountain Blue haskap has the sweet taste of raspberries and blueberries and produces large, elongated fruit high in antioxidants. Three pollinator varieties are also available for heavier berry crops: Sugar Mountain Balalaika, Sugar Mountain Polar Bear, and Sugar Mountain Kalinka.

Other additions include the first tetraploid winterberry, Little Goblin; a pair of extremely Phytophthora-resistant rhododendrons, Handy Man Pink and Handy Man Purple; a sterile golden privet, Golden Ticket; and a compact, yellow-leaved companion to Black Lace elderberry, Lemon Lace.

To request the 2014 Spring Meadow Nursery catalog, more information, or high-resolution electronic photos of these plants, please contact Shannon Springer at shannon@springmeadownursery.com.