Features

The newest star in Barbra Streisand’s garden is not any second-hand rose. This star is a brand new hybrid tea rose named Barbra Streisand that was selected by the singer herself. 

Now available at retail nurseries across the country, the Streisand rose is a dusty, mauve-pink color that will blush to a deeper shade around the edges, depending on the time of year. 

Horticulturist Tom Carruth of Weeks Roses, who bred the new hybrid tea, says it’s also “naturally vigorous and disease-resistant” and “so fragrant it almost hurts.” Carruth gave Streisand three roses that met her criteria for color, fragrance, and style, and she grew them in her own garden for nine months before selecting the one to bear her name. 

Streisand has extensive gardens on her property in Malibu, Calif., and has been cultivating roses for some time. Dan Bifano, Streisand’s horticulturist, says she has more roses than anything else on the property, “but frankly, she loves flowers, and her landscape is flowers from one end to the other.” 

Among them are close to 1,200 roses of all types, including climbers, miniature roses, old garden roses, English roses, shrub roses, modern hybrid teas, and floribundas. “I can’t think of anything she doesn’t have,” Bifano said, adding that Streisand herself is very involved in the process. “She is in the garden almost every day,” and on occasion “actually gets down and digs,” he said. 

Rosa Barbra Streisand is a fairly upright hybrid tea, growing to a height of about 4 feet on the east coast and taller out west, with deep green glossy foliage, lots of sprays, and repeat blooms throughout the growing season that have a fairly long vase life. 

Tom Carruth of Weeks Roses, said naming roses after celebrities is back in vogue after a hiatus of some time. 

Another new trend is wild colors and large sizes that were popular a century ago. Tony Avent, the owner of Plant Delights Nursery in North Carolina, says “tacky” is back in style. “We’re sort of having a Victorian revolution now,” he said. “We’re into tacky plants and that’s why all the canna lilies are hot again now.” 

Among his nursery’s new offerings is Phlox paniculata Becky Towe. Avent said it was discovered in Britain in the garden of June Towe, who named the plant after her dog. “It has dramatic, yellow-edged leaves,” said Avent, “and the flowers are Pepto-Bismol pink.” 

Another newcomer at Plant Delights is Vinca minor Illumination, a groundcover periwinkle that Avent says “is poised to set the gardening world on fire.” It has brilliant golden leaves bordered in green and pinwheel-shaped lavender flowers in spring. Unlike the usual green-leafed species, however, it does not have an invasive habit. 

Avent is also fond of Zantedeschia aethiopica White Giant, a calla lily with spikes that are 6 to 7 feet tall. He said the plant was found as a seedling by a gardener in Oregon who “just began sharing it with people, and it sort of made it into the trade through an underground sort of way.” 

Avent’s nursery is currently growing and testing over 9,000 plants. Of those, only 700 make it into the mail-order catalog, and only a very small percentage are new. Plant Delights looks for new plants all over the world but is now doing more research in the United States. “We really think that right now places like China have become the flavor of the month for plant collectors,” he said. 

“and there is no one we can find really doing a good job here in the United States.” 

Avent is doing a lot of exploration in North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Texas, looking for plants that are tolerant of heat and drought. He’s now testing ferns that grow in full sun and hopes to introduce them within the next few years. 

For 2001, he’s introduced a new sun-tolerant hosta called Stained Glass that he says is a “sun-loving hosta with brilliant gold, almost fluorescent leaves with a wide green border and very large fragrant flowers.” 

Heronswood Nursery in Washington state also is offering a number of new plants that fit right in with the Victorian revival. Begonia grandis Heron’s Pirouette has hot pink flowers over twice as long as the typical species that tumble down in a graceful manner. Helleborus foetidus Chedglow is a sensational new shade plant with golden foliage instead of green, and rich yellow flowers that bloom in very early spring. And Crocosmia Severn Sunrise (the Sword Lily) has blooms that are a noticeable departure from the normal golds, deep oranges and reds. This new plant produces vigorous upright stems bearing blooms of coral pink splashed with orange. 

Gardeners more interested in annual blooms should check the new selections at Thompson & Morgan. A breakthrough black-eyed susan, Rudbeckia Chim Chiminee, has unique quilled petals in shades of bright yellow, gold, mahogany and bronze that thrive in full sun and withstand stormy weather. And a new dwarf sunflower, Helianthus Dwarf Yellow Spray can be used as quick-growing, 2-foot-high hedge in beds, along borders, or in containers. 

Thompson & Morgan is also offering a special Kew Collection of limited-availability annual and perennial flower seeds that are for sale at commercial nurseries. A percentage of all sales will go to support the Millenium Seed Bank of Britain’s Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. The seed bank conserves rare and threatened seeds throughout the world, which may someday include many of the new selections that are just hitting the market in 2001. 

Web sites: 

Heronswood Nursery - http://www.heronswood.com 

Plant Delights - http://www.plantsdelight.com 

Thompson & Morgan - http://www.thompson-morgan.com