Specialty Gardening: New (to me) varieties for containers, 1 by LeawoodGardener

LeawoodGardener wrote:
Every year it seems I discover some new plant that I've never heard of before. As soon as I hear about the new variety, it seems to be everywhere.

This year I was looking for something different for a large limestone urn at the corner of my house. I force tulips for it in the spring, then like to have something flowering all summer. In the fall, after frost, I usually put an Alberta spruce in the urn to give interest over the winter.

This year I was at a nursery and noticed a begonia called 'Firecracker'. It has a trailing habit and orange-red blooms that look like bells. I'd never seen it before and the tag said it was sun tolerant, so I thought I'd give it a try. I also discovered a plant called Bacopa - another plant I'd never seen before! It has either white or blue-violet flowers, so I thought the blue variety would make a good compliment to the begonias.

The urn is large (42" in diameter) so I wanted something taller in the center. I selected an old favorite - a tried-and-true bush variety hibiscus with double orange blooms. I planted the urn in mid-May, after the tulips finished, and I'm happy with how the plants have performed so far. The Bacopa seems to bloom in cycles - lots of blooms, then just a few, then lots again. Today, there are just a few blooms.