Although this isn’t a banner year for new seed-propagated flowers, a few new
varieties deserve your consideration. Let me focus on some of the plants that you still have time to grow this year.
Among the new items from seed companies  are three cultivars of Celosia argentea plumosa. First, there is the greenish-yellow  ‘Sylphid’ available from Johnny’s Selected Seeds. It is described as a popular filler in Holland and much taller at 30-40 inches than many plume celosias. If lime green is popular with your customers, it’s worth a look. The other two celosias are from Japan, and you may have to make a special request for the seed from your Gloeckner sales rep, as they are not listed in the catalog. There is a red called ‘Hiryu #2’ and a yellow called ‘Kimpo.’ Another plume type that has been relisted by Gloeckner is the ‘Sparkler’ series. You may have grown these in the past and found they didn’t get tall enough; now Gloeckner advises that that they should be planted 4 inches apart and treated as single stems.
More new sunflowers are in the catalogs this year; that pushes the number of cultivars currently on the market to more than 50. It’s not always easy to determine which new varieties are improvements on the excellent sunflowers we’ve been growing for years. Growers all over the country rely on ‘Sunbright’ and ‘Sunrich’ series for single-stemmed sunflowers. More recently, many have switched to the ‘Pro Cut’ series. These are all great sunflowers. Now there’s a new color in the Pro Cut  series, a Red/Yellow Bicolor with yellow-tipped red flowers. Another nice single-stemmed variety is Solara. I grew it last year in spring in the hoophouse and found that although it bloomed about the same time as ‘Sunbright’ – the variety it resembles – it had stronger stems and somewhat fuller petals. I also trialed the new Sunrich Orange Summer, which looks like Sunrich Orange, and it bloomed at the same time in spring. However, Orange Summer is bred to bloom earlier and shorter in the long days of summer. If you’ve grown Sunrich Orange in mid-summer, you know that it gets really tall and takes a long time to bloom. You might want to trial Orange Summer against it this year and see how it does in your field. In theory, it will bloom two weeks before Sunrich Orange.
This year I’m trialing two more new sunflowers that are supposed to be comparable to Sunrich Orange; they’re called Tosca and Orange Glory. It’s hard to imagine the breeders can improve on Sunrich Orange, but they keep trying.
Another new sunflower that is advertised as being extemely quick to flower is ‘Premier Lemon’. I grew it in spring last year for the ASCFG trials. It flowered quickly, but on short, thin stems and the flowers were small and a feeble yellow. Other growers who planted it in midsummer liked it, so it must be day length sensitive. If you want a light yellow, 50-day, single-stemmed sunflower, you might want to give it a try.
One flower that I did not grow in the ASCFG trials last year, but which got rave reviews from those who did, was Eryngium ‘Blue Glitter’. If you’ve been disappointed by Eryngium in the past because it died out or grew slowly, this new cultivar is reportedly a vast improvement. Some growers got flowers the first year when seeds were planted in January or February. Others treated it like a perennial and expect it to flower this year.
Ornamental peppers are big this year, with the On Top series from Gloeckner offering tall plants with multiple branching stems topped with clusters of round peppers. The stems and peppers start off purple and can be used at any stage from there onward. At maturity, the peppers turn either bronze or red. In some parts of the country, they won’t color up before first frost, so you may want to grow them in a high tunnel. Another novelty is Pumpkin on a Stick, which has long stems with dangling little orange peppers that look like pumpkins. They’re a cute fall item, but watch out for the very nasty thorns on the stems.
Another filler flower that is not new but has just recently appeared in American catalogs is Ridolfia segetum ‘Goldspray’. Known as false fennel or false caraway, it is an umbelliferous plant with bright yellow stems and flowers. It reportedly holds up better after cutting than dill or fennel. Be careful with it, though — it’s a problem weed in the Mediterranean. I checked invasive plant lists from several organizations and it is not listed as an invasive in the U.S., but I think it’s always a good idea to pay attention to the self-seeding abilities of new plants. Ridolfia is offered by GeoSeed (888-645-2323; www.geoseed.com) and Select Seeds (800-684-0395; www.selectseeds.com).
One last newcomer that growers hope will prove itself worthy of the cut flower garden is Rudbeckia triloba ‘Prairie Glow’. Like the species that is so useful for summer bouquets, it has sprays of small brown-centered flowers. R. triloba has golden flowers; ‘Prairie Glow’ has red-and-gold flowers. Both are self-seeding biennials. It is also available from Select Seeds.
Next month, I’ll cover some of the newer tissue-cultured plants that are useful for cutting. 

Besides being the publisher of Growing for Market, Lynn Byczynski is a cut flower grower and the author of The Flower Farmer: An Organic Grower’s Guide to Raising and Selling Cut Flowers. It’s available to GFM subscribers for $20 plus $5 shipping from GFM Books, PO Box 3747, Lawrence KS 66046; 800-307-8949.