8 New Perennial Collections For 2020

We've created 8 new perennial collections for the 2020 Spring season, featuring some of our favorite and bestselling plants, including Lavender, Penstemon, Asclepias, Salvia, Ornamental Grasses, and more. These colorful collections are the perfect way to jump-start your garden design. You can also find the perfect collection to solve gardening challenges, attract pollinators, fill in new garden beds, and more.
Read on to learn more about the 8 exciting new collections from High Country Gardens:
All Star Penstemon Collection
Our ‘All Star Penstemon Collection’ is a showcase of colors and forms that delivers more flowers every year. Enjoy warm red, pale pink, magenta, and inky purple flowers blooming early spring to early summer. Following the blooms, a lovely tapestry of evergreen foliage textures will complement later-blooming perennials.
Penstemon, also called Beardtongue, are easy-to-grow perennials that are native to the American west, and will naturalize and spread steadily, attracting bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds, but resisting hungry deer. This is a must-have collection for waterwise gardens!
- Firecracker Penstemon (Penstemon eatonii Richfield) has brilliant red flowers that bloom from early-to-mid spring, and is noted for exceptional hardiness and vigor.
- Rocky Mountain Penstemon (Penstemon strictus), blooms with blue-violet flowers from mid-to-late spring, and is known for being exceptionally easy to grow.
- Coconino County Desert Penstemon (Penstemon pseudospectabilis) has prolific, vigorous magenta flowers blooming in late spring, and is notable for being introduced by David Salman of High Country Gardens.
- Compact Pineleaf Penstemon (Penstemon pinifolius), the smallest in the collection, has bright red flowers late spring to early summer.
- Palmer’s Penstemon (Penstemon palmeri, also called Pink wild Snapdragon) blooms with very pale pink flowers in early summer on exceptionally tall flower spikes, and is one of the few fragrant Penstemon varieties.
This collection is the perfect grouping to fill in your garden and attract pollinators while summer and fall blooming perennials are waking up. Plant in well-drained soil with full sun. Good choice for rock gardens, alpine plantings, or difficult, hard-to-reach gardens.
Cold Hardy Rainbow Salvia Collection
Our Cold Hardy Rainbow Salvia Collection is an exciting array of 9 Salvia varieties, featuring purple, red, pink, and coral flowers that bloom from summer through fall. The flowers look delicate, but these native perennial plants are tough! They’re waterwise, cold hardy, and easy-to-grow in even hot, dry conditions. Flowers with a sweet herbal fragrance provide nectar to attract hummingbirds and bumblebees, while fragrant resinous foliage is resistant to deer and rabbits. Plant in a large swath and enjoy watching them sway as pollinators fly from plant to plant.
Each Salvia variety’s name is telling of its vibrant, enticing colors – making this collection a delight to grow! Varieties of note include several Salvia in the FlowerKisser™ Series, 'Dark Shadows,' 'Deep Rose Pink,' and 'Coral Pink.' Plants in the FlowerKisser™ series are selected and developed for their high nectar content and vibrant colors, and are introduced by David Salman, High Country Gardens founder and Chief Horticulturalist. In addition, ‘Ultra Violet’ Salvia is a unique hybrid discovered at the home of garden designer Lauren Springer Ogden. Salvia, or Sage, are some of High Country Gardens' most popular perennial plants for waterwise gardens. Plant throughout your existing garden, or plant together to create a swath of rosy colors.
Grama Grass Collection
Our Grama Grass Collection features three ornamental grasses, some of our very best garden plants. With their fine-textured foliage, attractive flowers and seed heads, and graceful movement in the breeze, they give us a remarkable visual contrast with flowering perennials and shrubs. Create a sophisticated mass planting, or plant a backdrop to your flower garden for year-round visual interest. Even past the flowering season, you can enjoy the texture and beauty of ornamental grass in fall and winter.
The native grasses in this collection also provide habitat for birds and insects, and are host plants for several moths and butterflies. Planting insect habitat is essential for a healthy pollinator population, as well as a healthy songbird population! Plant this collection in well-draining soil.
- Sideoats Grama Grass (Bouteloua curtipendula), new for 2020, brings a tall vertical element, with delicate seeds running along the stem.
- Blonde Ambition Blue Grama Grass (Bouteloua gracilis PP#22,048) is a large-growing native ornamental grass with a striking look. Horizontal chartreuse flowers appear in mid-summer, then age to blonde seed heads by fall, and hold on through winter to provide months of interest. Blonde Ambition, the 2011 High Country Gardens Plant of The Year, was discovered and introduced by David Salman.
- Hairy Grama Grass (Bouteloua hirsuita), also new for 2020, is a shorter native variety, generously covered with flag-like seed heads. Attracts butterflies.
Quick Cover Collection
The Quick Color Groundcover Collection is an exceptional trio of showy groundcover plants. Plant in full sun locations to add a layer of visual interest to your garden!
- Jumbo Snow In Summer (Cerastium tomentosum), discovered by David Salman in Santa Fe, NM, has a vigorous growth habit that makes it an excellent lawn substitute. It produces a carpet of white blooms in late spring.
- Hardy Plumbago (Ceratostigma plumbaginoides) is one of the most versatile and dynamic groundcovers for cold climates, with deep blue flowers in late summer, and foliage that turns from deep green to burgundy in fall.
- Red Mother-of-Thyme (Thymus serpyllum) is known for a profusion of showy rose-red flowers in late spring to late summer, and grows to form thick mats of tiny evergreen leaves. (Not as xeric as some other varieties, this one needs regular moisture).
Planting groundcovers is a great way to save water and mow less. Groundcovers are some of our most versatile garden plants, and can be used as lawn replacements, companion plants under taller growing perennials and flowering bulbs, protection from soil erosion, living mulch to shade the ground and conserve water, and more!
Rosy Trio Valerian Collection
Our Rosy Trio Valerian Collection features a trio of tough, waterwise perennials, perfect for filling your garden or meadow with blooms all summer. Valerian (or Centranthus, also called Jupier's Beard) is easy to grow and will naturalize and spread, making them perfect for cottage gardens, meadows, or hard-to-reach hillsides that you’d like to fill with rosy colors and pollinators.
Red, white, and pink flower clusters top deep green foliage. Durable, low maintenance blooms last for the whole summer, attracting butterflies while resisting deer and rabbits. It’s a great choice for a pollinator garden, as well as hilly or hard-to-reach gardens, or areas that need help with soil stabilization.
Centranthus prefers well-drained soil. Once established, it thrives with minimal water and care. Too much water and rich soil are not helpful for this plant – making it perfect in difficult growing conditions or hard-to-reach gardens. Cut back in spring. Deadheading will help to reduce reseeding if you do not want them to spread too much, and it will stimulate re-flowering.
Shop the Rosy Trio Valerian Collection
Swamp Milkweed Collection
Our Swamp Milkweed Collection is the perfect start to your butterfly garden, rain garden, stream bed, or anywhere you want to see beautiful flowers and pollinators in wet soil. Pink and white flowers on tall stems with lovely long green leaves look beautiful in large plantings, or paired with other tall perennials. In fall, look for plentiful silky-haired seeds. Asclepias incarnata (also known as Swamp Milkweed and Rose Milkweed) is a native perennial, and the sole host plant of Monarch Butterflies. In time, this deer resistant plants will spread and naturalize to help your pollinator garden grow!
Asclepias, or Milkweed, are sun loving plants that are essential perennials for monarch butterflies, providing food for caterpillars and nectar for adult butterflies. They bloom from mid-summer into early fall and, with their milky sap, are resistant to rabbits and deer. Swamp Milkweed will spread more slowly that its relatives, making it a better candidate to include in traditional perennial garden beds. Milkweed can be slow-growing, and slow to wake up from dormancy in spring, but these long-lived perennials are essential for the survival of monarch butterflies, and long-lived once established! We highly recommend giving these beauties a place in your garden.
Three Tier Lavender Collection
The Three Tier Lavender Collection features three graduating sizes of lavender - compact, midsized, and tall varieties - that will bloom late spring through summer, and again in fall. Lavender’s soothing fragrance, sophisticated form, and visiting butterflies, bees, and pollinators make them some of our most popular plants. Perfect for a long-lasting fragrant container garden, or an inviting display in the front of garden beds or along pathways.
- Pastor's Pride English Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) is a twice blooming English lavender with mid-blue flower spikes in late spring and again in September.
- Vera English Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) is an heirloom English Lavender known for its sweet fragrance, dark lavender-blue flower spikes in summer, and compact size.
- Grosso French Lavender (Lavandula intermedia) is a large growing French hybrid Lavender known for profuse mid-summer flowers and vigorous growth habit. This variety is ideal for drying or culinary use.
The succession of blooms makes this collection outstanding for nurturing honeybees over the course of the season. Use prolific blooms for aromatherapeutic lavender wands, sachets, and culinary applications. Lavender plants look stunning when planted with Oriental Poppies (Papaver), Yarrow (Achillea), Milkweed (Asclepias) and Montbretia (Crocosmia). These cold-hardy plants prefer full sun locations and well-drained soil. The lovely scent helps deter deer and rabbits.
Worry-Free Bee Balm Collection
The Worry-Free Bee Balm Collection features three native perennial Monarda, a favorite native perennial for good reason! Deer resistant and easy to grow, these Bee Balm will naturalize, multiplying year after year to develop into a colorful garden. The Worry-Free Combo is known for disease resistance as well. Bright flowers in purple and violet-blue are fragrant, which will attract pollinators including butterflies and hummingbirds. Plant in full sun in fertile soil to enjoy for many years to come.
- Our selection of Wild Bergamot Bee Balm (Monarda fistulosa), exclusive to High Country Gardens, has pretty, soft purple flowers and is adapted to some of the harshest garden conditions.
- ‘Raspberry Wine’ is an uncommon variety highly attractive to hummingbirds and has good vigor in the garden.
- ‘Jacob Cline’ has spectacular scarlet red flowers for a month or so in mid-summer, and excellent mildew resistance.