Flower Trials 2021: Sun vs. Shade

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- Hello.

We're out here standing in the Penn State Flower Trials and today's production is going to be about cultivars in sun and shade.

I'm here with Krystal Snyder and she's gonna help with this program.

And we'll provide you some information on those plants.

So I'm standing here with this beautiful impatiens.

It's a New Guinea impatiens, in the SunPatiens line, coming from Sakata Seed America.

And this is a new cultivar, compact, deep red.

And really nice flower size.

Very, very good bloom.

It's got a lot of flowers on the plant, buds are coming, and a really nice habit, an excellent performer.

And this is what it looks like in the sun.

And here's the same plant being grown in shade.

Now, in shade, there is a little less flower power, less bloom per unit area of canopy.

But the flowers are very, very good quality.

And the plant habit is just a little bit bigger.

So an excellent cultivar in both sun and here in the shade.

- All right.

So in front of me here is impatiens walleriana, the Beacon series from Ball Plant by PanAmerican Seed.

And this is the coral.

We also have a bunch of different colors, a tri-color, an orange, a red, a white, pretty much any color you could ask for.

And the great thing about the Beacon series is that it is resistant to impatiens downy mildew.

We've trialed this for the last two years and it has been well-performing.

And I am super excited to see impatiens back in the landscape.

So all of these are featured in this shade and let's head over to the sun.

So now I'm out here in the sun section with our Beacon impatiens from Ball.

And you can see a really good size, really good mounding habit, a little bit less flower power than we're seeing in the shade house.

But I would probably attribute that to the one inch of rain we got last night and the inch and a half of rain we got last week.

I think these are gonna bounce back really well, but overall the entire line is doing fantastically in sun and shade.

Okay. So in front of me is Begonia Megawatt, Pink Bronze Leaf, Improved.

It's a seed variety from PanAmerican Seed.

Out here in the sun, doing really well.

Good even growth, a lot of flower power and some gorgeous bronze leaves.

And here's that same Megawatt Begonia in the shade house performing as equally great in the shade as it is in the sun.

Same great flower power.

I would say the bronzing of the leaves is a little bit more pronounced here in the shade.

But other than that, a real winner.

- One of the wonderful companies that contributes plants to our program just about every year is Classic Caladiums out of Florida.

And we have some really good cultivars in the shade, but two are being trialed in both sun and shade.

Here is Hot 2 Trot, which is this really, really rich red.

Strong color, compact habit, and a very nice presentation.

An excellent performer.

And over here is Explosion.

And this one has a little bit of leaf damage, but it's a beautiful color combination.

Both green and red and sort of bronze pigment are in the foliar leaves and a really, really compact, decent plant.

So caladiums in the shade.

Here we are with caladium Hot 2 Trot.

Really rich, strong color in the foliage.

It's a little taller than in full sun, but the color is just beautiful and a lovely uniform habit.

Back here is Explosion.

And this is quite different than in the sun presentation.

This is a much taller plant here in the shade.

Probably got another, almost a foot of growth on it, compared to the sun and the color and texture of the foliage is excellent.

- So normally, we trial a lot of dahlias here in the sun.

But this year, we're actually trialing two varieties from Benary, the Dahlia Lubega Power, Tropical Punch and Tricolor are next to me, in sun and shade.

So here in the sun, they are looking good.

I love this Tropical Punch.

It's very yellow on the outside of the leaves and the deep purple inside.

And the Tricolor is more of an orange, red, white-ish color.

Both really good compact habit.

Good green foliage, really well for a pot crop.

All right. So over here in the shade house, the Tropical Punch and the Power Tricolor in the Lubega series are doing very well.

And honestly, I think the colors are a little bit more pronounced here in the shade house, on both of these varieties.

And, you know, honestly, it's probably 'cause it's a little bit cooler in here than it is out on that black plastic.

But both doing really, really well.

And honestly, dahlias in shade, I kind of scratched my head at, but these are doing really well.

- Some of the coleus we grow are both in sun and shade as well as other things.

And here is a really new, neat plant from Ball FloraPlant.

This is a cultivar called Spitfire. It's very strong colors.

It's got a very nice long lanceolate sort of leaf and it's a true dwarf.

It's a compact habit.

Okay. So here's our Spitfire in full sun.

And you may see that the color in the red pigment is not quite as strong as it was in the shade, but it's just as compact.

And you get a true idea of how small this plant really is when you look here at Vulcan, another BF, Ball FloraPlant cultivar, which is typical height.

- So here in full sun, Dummen has a handful of coleus from the Main Street series.

Right in front of me is Main Street Ruby Road.

Then we have Young Street and Chartres Street.

Really good color here in full sun.

I would say these are about three foot-ish tall right now, but really good coloration, really even growth habit.

So we'll see how they look over in the shade.

And here we are over in the shade, those same three coleus all performing really well.

I will say, I think the colors are a little more vibrant here in the shade, especially with this lime green.

But all performing really great.

That's about it for these.

- One of my favorite plants in the coleus collection is this Dragon Heart from Ball FloraPlant.

It's got this really nice vein pattern in the leaf, red background by green, a light green, not too dark.

Strong color, really uniform habit and an excellent, excellent performer.

And here's this Dragon Heart in full sun.

And the colors here are a little less strengthy, the background color is a little brighter, but nevertheless, the same perfectly uniform habit and a strong, strong performer.

Lovely.

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