Perennials That WOW–Sneak Peek at Tomorrow’s Top Perennials!

Join Wayne on his annual trip to Walters Gardens, one of the top perennial growers in the country. In this week’s Wednesdays with Wayne, he takes you through the stunning trial gardens—showcasing some of our favorite tried-and-true performers, plus an exciting look at the future varieties of those perennials.

Whether you’re a home gardener or landscape professional, you’ll get a sneak peek at what’s thriving and what’s next for your garden!

[Music] Welcome to Wednesdays with Wayne and we’re here again at Walters Gardens at our annual summer visit and I want to go through a few videos of some really cool plants that are tried and true and some of the future of those plants. I’m going to start with a pensamin. This has been a tough reliable plant. This one’s onyx and pearls. We’ve also used one called Dark Towers as well as Blackbeard. And I’m going to show you the future that we saw in the garden of them actually changing out the foliage color, but these have been tough and reliable in the landscape. Our pensmen were very popular with the dark foliages. We came across this yellow foliage which is going to be a little bit of future breeding in Pensan. And I’m pretty excited about that because when you see these new yellow foliage pens and contrast them against the dark purple foliage, that is really a fantastic combination. No idea exactly when these will be available or the names of these, but I’m super excited about the future of pens. Catmint, which has been a staple, things like Walker’s Low and Cat’s Pajamas and Cats Meow. But this is called Catwalk Queen. So again, we’re looking at the future. These are not even available at this time. I’m expecting in 2026 hopefully we can get some of these newer plants. The catwalk queen has much longer, larger flowers, very thick stems and thick thick foliage, and the plants themselves are actually rather compact. So kind of the future of nepida in catwalk queen. As we go around the corner here, one that we’ve had for a while that we feel was just a really cool, very vigorous plant is chartreuse on the loose cap. And this particular one, of course, is really spreading out, very early bloomer. And this will continue through the season. But you can see here after the first set of blooms, it would really benefit from a white shearing for this new foliage to come up and for the flowering to continue. a smaller version of chartreuse on the loose and a little bit more compact. You’ll see this lemon perfection. So, this is a little bit more, like I say, it’s a little tighter on it. Again, the same kind of flowering looks great. And I’m hopefully going to start to get this in in 2026 one should be available as well. And this cat’s pajamas. Again, we’re looking at really tall flowers on a more compact plant versus things like walkers low, which really are tall. They spllay a lot and they spread quite a bit. And remember on the whole Catman series, it’s best to grow them a little bit on the dry side and not overmanage them with mulch or fertilizer. A current availability of a dark foliage, a stillby is this dark side of the moon. And it’s more of a foliage plant rather than flowering. It does get a little bit of flowering, but this is again a full sun a stillby. It could also take part shade. And I’m about to show you one in the future that’s really going to be more flowers than foliage. A future darkest still be. We were looking at this and I don’t think we’re going to have this available for at least one maybe two years. Uh but this is still be called dragon’s layer. I’m loving the substance of this. Uh it’s thick stems. Looks like great flowering and this foliage is incredible. Looks like a little bit of the burgundy with the purple. Um, I’m super excited about this, but have no idea how far in the future this one’s going to be. Finally, we found in the garden and was available this year on a very limited basis was golden anniversary baptisia. I know the specimen looks a little bit weak, but again, this is so new. It’s the first breakthrough in yellow foliage with baptisia. This plant will get about 3 foot by 3 foot. It will be contrasted with bright purple flowers early in the spring. Super exciting. That was available now. As well as this newer hibiscus with the dark foliage called cookies and cream. This is a shorter series at about 3 foot by 3 foot with white flowers. So those are some exciting brand new plants that are available now and in the future. So I want to thank you for joining Wednesdays with Wayne sponsored by Neim’s Landscape Supply. And remember, beautiful landscapes start here. [Music]