First Impressions: New Perennials of 2025
Like many of you, we’re knee-deep in production planning for next year. As we look ahead to the coming season, new plants are inevitably a big part of the discussion: what worked, what didn’t, and what needs more time. Below are a few impressions of new and newer perennials we grew in 2025.
We started out the season with two stunners from our forced perennial program. I don’t often say this about lilies, but Lilium ‘Tiny Massive’ blew my socks off. A new addition to the Lily Looks™ series, the striking display of yellow and black bicolored flowers is truly unique. And we weren’t the only ones who felt this way – Growing Colors was presented with a Retailers Choice Award for ‘Tiny Massive’ this past summer at Cultivate ’25. On the other hand, Thalictrum ‘Cotton Candy’ brought a sense of nostalgia. This new take on an old-fashioned favorite is tall and upright with dense, sturdy foliage that towered above our other greenhouse crops and didn’t falter after more than one run-in with the irrigation boom. The wispy, fluffy flowers, reminiscent of something out of a Dr. Seuss book, can lend finer texture to any design.
Echinacea Sunseekers® Tequila Sunrise is another perennial that caught our attention with its bright flowers. Can you have too many coneflowers? Maybe, but this variety has to be part of the mix. The single flowers consist of bright yellow petals that are red at the base and radiate out from bold center cones. Tequila Sunrise sets itself apart from many of the other varieties in the Sunseekers® series, which are characterized by multiple layers of petals, but it’s just as bold.
The Firefly series of Proven Winners® Achillea continues to impress us and gain traction both from garden centers and landscape contractors. Our favorites are ‘Firefly Sunshine’ and ‘Firefly Red Pop’. They hold up well in the container and in our trial garden, offering a stout, well-branched alternative to older, more leggy varieties like ‘Moonshine’ and ‘Paprika’.
I was surprised to find that Panicum ‘Half Pint’ really grew on me this year. Just as the name implies, this is simply a cute, compact Panicum. A new introduction from Walter’s Gardens, it’s purported to top out at 3’. Ours grew to about 24” this year in the container, and we will continue to monitor it in the coming seasons.
We wanted to love Allium ‘Bobblehead’, but, while the size of the blooms is impressive, we felt the flower color is too muted to make an impact in the landscape. Overall, we don’t feel customers will be willing to pay a premium price for this branded Allium with so many other varieties on the market.
Sedum ‘Bright Idea’ first caught my eye on a trip to the Walter’s Gardens trial gardens. I love the bright yellow flowers in combination with red stems, and this plant presents very well in a container. Unfortunately, our initial experiences have shown that it tends to break apart when planted in the landscape. We’re going to grow it again in 2026 and watch its progress in our trial garden.
We’re typically first in line to try every new perennial Hibiscus introduction on the market, and this year we were excited to try two new varieties. The much-anticipated ‘Cookies and Cream’ didn’t disappoint. The combination of white flowers against the backdrop of showy dark foliage was just as satisfying as we had hoped, and this variety was a dream from a grower’s perspective. Hibiscus are typically somewhat labor intensive due to the pruning that’s needed to keep them in check, but we didn’t touch this variety with a pair of pruners and it still maintained a neat, tidy ball from the moment it flushed out until it finished blooming. We also added ‘Garnet Globes’ to our perennial Hibiscus program this year. Meant to be similar in form to ‘Cookies and Cream’, but with bright red flowers and dark green foliage, this variety didn’t stand out to us. We felt that the flower color was more dull than that of other red varieties, and the flowers tended to get lost in the foliage.
We could talk new plants all day. If you have opinions or feedback on any of these varieties or others, we’d love to hear your thoughts. We’ll revisit this topic soon when we discuss new shrubs.
