The Dirt on Proven Winner Plants
You may have seen the iconic white pots with the Proven Winner logo on them and wondered what makes them special. They were one of the first recognizable plant brands. The power behind the brand is their success; as they put it ‘every Proven Winner plant is selected for beauty, reliability and garden success.’ And we agree with this marketing message!
We used to carry a ton of Proven Winner annuals, then it feels like there weren’t as many available. This brand has made a major comeback though and all the growers we work with have an outstanding collection to choose from. Here are some of our favorites; ones we have tried with outstanding success!
Supertunia – This line of petunias are self-cleaning, meaning no dead-heading or removal of spent blooms is necessary. If you have planted the old-fashioned petunias that come in 6 packs, you know what a good thing the self-cleaning petunia is. We love the big blooms of a grandiflora petunia as much as anyone but we love the no dead-heading of a Supertunia more! There are more color options each year. Other cool attributes of these plants is that they are disease resistant and vigorous growing.
Vermillionaire Cuphea – Just maybe the best version of firecracker plant there is! It’s another vigorous grower, and has tons of orange cigar shaped blooms that pollinators and hummingbirds flock to. It’s also drought resistant for an annual, and grows to a good size of 18-28 inches tall and wide.
ColorBlaze Coleus – It used to be that all coleus was shade to part-sun, then came the very cool sun coleus options, somewhere in there, trailing coleus became a thing and now ColorBlaze is rocketing coleus into a whole other sphere! Unique colors and leaf shapes, drought tolerant PLUS many of the ColorBlaze thrive and hold their unique foliage colors in sun AND in shade.
Sweet Caroline Medusa Sweet Potato Vines – If you scroll back up to the picture on the top of this post, check out both the purple leaves and green leaved sweet potato vines… see all that leaf serration? These jagged leaves layer over each other, and form a mound about 6-12 inches tall and as wide as 30 inches over time. This is not the traditional Margarita Sweet Potato Vine that has to be trimmed back all summer, so take that into account when planning your pots.
This is a just the smallest of shout-outs; we have Proven Winner shrubs, as well as a ton more Proven Winner annuals. In our seasonal area, we have separated out the Proven Winners and now have full tables of only PW plants. This series of plants sells fast; we suggest getting them early in the season; waiting could mean missing out!