I like to experiment with new annual cultivars, but I also have a list of favorites that I rely on year after year. I hate it when one of my favorites disappears. Sometimes it’s because something new and improved takes its place, but other times there’s no explanation. I’m still bitter about losing Peter Pan ‘Plum’ zinnias. Their color was unique, they sprouted well from seed and bloomed happily until frost. I haven’t been able to find anything similar since. I grow the Dreamland and Magellan series and like them both, but neither offers a color like Peter Pan ‘Plum’.
I’m also disappointed that the bi-colored ageratums have all disappeared. First it was ‘Capri’ (pictured above) and then ‘Bavaria’. The flowers had more character than the solid-colored ageratums, and both cultivars were in that hard-to-find height range of 14 inches. They looked especially fetching next to pink- or white-flowering plants.
I don’t know if it’s my imagination or not, but it seems that there are fewer annual seed cultivars available each year. People would rather spend $5 on a plant-propagated petunia than spend the same amount of money to grow 30 of them from seed.
Garden trends come and go, so perhaps I just need to wait a few years for the lowly annual seed to come back into style.