It's the American Idol of the Garden World

If you spin into the Idea Garden from our south entrance (just off the shady path from the First Division Museum), you’ll find a trio of circles bursting with blooms. Within those three circles are the entries for this year’s American Garden Award. They are bright with color and three of the four varieties often have a grouping of butterflies performing a tango atop them.

The American Garden Award competition is in its second year. Numerous plant nominees were submitted to the judges by various breeders. The AGA judges selected four varieties to compete to become this year’s national winner. And you, the gardening public, get to vote on who you think the winner should be. Eighteen sites nationwide, of which Cantigny is one, are displaying the four nominees. And just like the famed television program, there are several ways that your vote can be counted:

1. You can phone in your top favorite, or...
2. You can text in your top favorite, or…
3. You can vote on the website: www.americangardenaward.org or….
4. Lastly, unlike the television program, you can mail in a postcard.


Our spiffy mailbox, which contains the postcards,was hand painted by one of our horticulture volunteers, Gladys Johnston.

The four nominees this year are: Echinacea ‘Prairie Fire’, Ornamental Pepper Purple Flash, Rudbeckia ‘Denver Daisy’, and Zinna ‘Profusion Knee-High Red’. Please note that all the pictures within this blog were taken at Cantigny.

Instructional sign that also identifies each variety.

Echinacea 'Prairie Splendor'™ was Fleuroselect Gold Medal winner in 2007. And no wonder—at 24” it is shorter than most Echinacea, but blooms its little heart out from June through the first frost. The only entry in the group that is a perennial and blooms its first year from seed.

Echinacea purpurea 'Prairie Splendor'

As is typical for ornamental peppers, their fruit is fiery hot, but you’ll want to grow this exotic plant for its striking black leaves that have “flashes” of purple, green and white. Ornamental Pepper ‘Purple Flash’ looks great in container plantings as well as a bedding plant. While short of stature (10-13”) it packs quite a punch in the “looks” category and is drought tolerant as well.

Ornamental Pepper 'Purple Flash'

Rudbeckia hirta ‘Denver Daisy’ was selected by the city of Denver for their 150-year anniversary beautification project. This tall plant (18-20”) has large (4-6”) non-stop gold flowers with an inner concentric band of russet. You’ll get a lot of bang for your buck with this black-eyed susan annual plant.

Rudbeckia hirta 'Denver Daisy'



Zinnia ‘Profusion Knee High Red’ The Profusion series is well-known for its tolerance of heat and humidity, but ‘Red’ is a bit taller (16-24”) than its siblings. This red-blooming hybrid is nice as a cut flower and is drought tolerant too.

Zinnia hybrida 'Profusion Knee-High Red'

And the winner of the next American Garden Award is……to be announced in September. Don’t forget to vote for your favorite!