Home & Garden
2026 – Year of the Impatiens
The National Garden Bureau has named this the Year of the Impatiens. I could not be happier. Very few flowers provide non-stop blooms from spring until frost in the deep South. From impatiens that look like a rose, to riveting color in the shade garden and in full sun the impatiens can do it all.
Let’s go basic and that is the bedding impatiens. I can remember a time in my horticultural career when they were number one at all garden centers and then the plague set in with a spiteful mildew. But that has changed and toughness and resistance has been put back in.
Read all about these colorful flowers in your Thursday Bowie News.
The National Garden Bureau has chosen 2026 to be the Year of the Sedum. It is always the year of the sedum at The Garden Guy’s house. As I pulled photos for this column I was stunned by its beauty, and in this case, it is Lemon Coral sedum.
I quickly came up with 30 photos which is about 25 too many but I’ll submit around 9 and see what the editors do. But this brought up a question in my mind: why isn’t everyone using it, especially in their containers?
Read the full Garden Guy column in Thursday’s Bowie News.
The Unplugged salvia group grew to four in 2025 and needs to be your start to an epic red, white and blue garden.
There also is an Unplugged Pink. The group has won 89 awards, and I predict more will come. Three of the four have Texas DnA which should put a smile on Bowie Texas gardener’s faces
The unplugged salvias give The Garden Guy a lot to talk about. Truth be known, I wanted to title this column Unpacking the Unpluggeds. Microsoft Word has already redlined that but I’ll persist and see if the bevy of editors along the way to a published column take exception. The unpacking should be fun if I do it right.
Read the full Garden Guy story in the Thursday Bowie News.
Unplugged So Blue salvia was the first in the Unplugged group and has won 37 awards. Here it is seen with Heat it Up Yellow gaillardia or blanket flower.
It is so much fun this time of the year as we celebrate the colors of the year, the plants of the year and even the flowers of the year.
A couple of years ago Japan chose one of ours as the Flower of the Year. It was the Pugster Amethyst butterfly bush.
That’s right, one of our TEAM, Pugster Amethyst butterfly bush won the prestigious Flower of the Year, from the Japan Flower Selections Association. As a horticulturist, I’m more use to thinking we get plants from Japan such as the Washington D.C. cherry trees. Then there are the azaleas, camellias and a million others.
But Pugster, the short chubby butterfly bush had just won the trifecta. Yes, trifecta as in awards in the United States, Europe and now Japan.
Read the full Garden Guy column in Thursday’s Bowie News.
Top – A beautiful butterfly is enjoying this Pugstser Amethyst. (Photo by Norman Winter)
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