All America Selections (AAS) is a non-profit trialling organization that tests new, never-before-sold varieties of plants for the home gardener. After a full season of anonymous trialling by volunteer horticultural professionals, only the top garden performers are given the AAS Winner Award designation for their superior performance. The AAS Winner label is like a stamp of approval as its mission is to promote new garden varieties with superior garden performance. Their tagline “Tested Nationally and Proven Locally®” most definitely says it all!
AAS is therefore the place to go for the next best thing to guarantee success in your garden. Once or twice each decade there is an AAS Gold Medal Award that honours a breeding breakthrough. Standard AAS National Winner designation recognizes an ornamental or edible that shows significant breeding achievements and demonstrates superior garden performance compared to other varieties available. Judges also evaluate characteristics such as earliness, taste, disease resistance, uniqueness and more depending on the species. AAS Regional Winner designation is given to varieties that do not perform exceptionally in all regions but in specific regions of North America. Certain regions are named AAS Regional Winners. The AAS Winners offer gardeners reliable new varieties of plants to grow in your garden.
The 2025 winners will be available for purchase for the gardening season as supply becomes available. It is sometimes difficult to get the seed or the plants desired when the winners are just announced but if you go to the All America Selections website, they list the seed houses that sell seed of the winning plants. The URL is https://all-americaselections.org/buy-winners/
There are three new nasturtiums to try out this year in the ever-popular Baby series. All three new colours are petite-flowered mounding nasturtiums with healthy dark foliage that truly is a “must add” to your garden. Baby Gold, Baby Yellow and Baby Red will be perfect for containers or borders with their neat and no flopping habit. Flowers, leaves and seeds are all edible which is a bonus to their beauty!
Dahlia Black Forest Ruby is a gem of a plant with striking black foliage and abundant ruby-red flowers. Blooms are semi-double to double giving it even more interesting features. The plants are sturdy and disease-free.
Dianthus Interspecific Capitán™ is an impressive plant as it continues to bloom right through the heat of midsummer. The blooms are a beautiful pin with light pink edging and are on stems long enough for use as a fresh-cut flower.
If you like marigolds, then Mango Tango should be your top choice. It dances through the garden with a stunning, super-saturated bi-colour flower of yellow and red. Blooming prolifically over a long flowering window makes an eye-catching display!
The newest razzle dazzle petunia is the Dekko Maxx Pink! It quickly spreads with a compact habit with loads of delicate, yet vibrant pink blooms. The non-fading flowers held up extremely well despite inclement weather throughout the season.
Petunia Shake™ Raspberry has the unique colouration of a blended raspberry milkshake swirled with lemon-lime green sorbet. This naturally compact petunia will not melt in the summer heat so continues to provide colour all season long.
Watch next week for more AAS Winners!
Hanbidge is the Lead Horticulturist with Orchid Horticulture. Find us at www.orchidhort.com; by email at [email protected]; on Facebook @orchidhort and on Instagram at #orchidhort.
Tune into GROW Live on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/orchidhort or check out the Youtube channel GROW… https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzkiUpkvyv2e2HCQlFl0JyQ?
