Gardening
New Winning Flower and Vegetable Varieties
The strong stems of Doubleshot snapdragons produce a plethora of stunning orange flowers all season.
Photo courtesy of All-America Selections
t's never too early to start planning new additions to this year's gardens and containers. Start compiling your list now so you are ready to place your seed order or buy plants early when the selection is the greatest.
Consider including a few All-America Selections (AAS) winners. These plants have been "Tested Nationally & Proven LocallyTM" for their superior performance in home gardens and containers. Grow a few of these 2023 flower winners for a new look to some long-time favorites.
Coral Candy Coleus is part of the Premium Sun series of coleus. It is the first coleus grown from seed to be selected as an AAS Winner. This uniformly compact coleus has unique narrow, serrated, multicolored leaves. The AAS judges found this variety maintained the color even when grown in full sun. It performed well all season and had almost no flowers. You will only need three seeds to fill a 14 to 16" container.
Bring a bit of the tropics to your garden, patio, or balcony with Royal Hawaiian® Waikiki colocasia. This beautiful elephant ear wowed the judges with its sturdy burgundy stems and large glossy leaves featuring pink veins and creamy white centers. Waikiki reveals these striking colors earlier than other variegated colocasia. This compact variety holds up well in wind and rain.
The stunning orange flowers of Doubleshot snapdragons will have you looking for spaces in the garden and containers to include this winner. This 18 to 20" tall snapdragon features open-faced double flowers that start out in shades of orange and orange-red transitioning to a dusty shade as they age. Its strong stems produce lots of flower-filled branches all season long that don't break off in high winds.
Blue By You salvia is bursting with bright blue flowers from late spring into fall when spent flowers are removed. This perennial blooms up to two weeks earlier than similar varieties already on the market. It was tested over three seasons, including winters and proven to be hardy in zones 4b to 9a. It is a favorite of hummingbirds and butterflies, makes a great cut flower, is suitable for containers, and is heat tolerant. All this and it's less favored by deer and rabbits.
Make space in the vegetable garden for the high-yielding Kabocha Sweet Jade winter squash. The fruit weighs between one and two pounds, making it perfect for single servings of squash, as an edible soup bowl, or added to a variety of Asian-style dishes where a sweet, earthy nutritious squash is typically recommended. Roast, bake, or puree Sweet Jade's deep orange flesh that has a dry texture with a sweet flavor.
Grow San Joaquin jalapeno pepper when looking for big harvests in a short timeframe. This means you'll have lots of peppers available for canning, pickling, and serving roasted and stuffed to large groups of guests. Leave them on the plant longer, allowing them to turn a beautiful red while maintaining their flavor. These thick-walled peppers have just a hint of heat at 2,500-6,000 Scoville units.
Make room in your gardens and containers for these and other winning varieties. Adding new introductions that have been trialed by horticulture professionals across North America helps increase your gardening success.
Melinda Myers has written more than 20 gardening books, including The Midwest Gardener's Handbook, 2nd Edition and Small Space Gardening. She hosts The Great Courses "How to Grow Anything" DVD series and the nationally-syndicated Melinda's Garden Moment TV & radio program. Myers is a columnist and contributing editor for Birds & Blooms magazine. Her web site is www.MelindaMyers.com.
Antiques
Auction News for the New Year
An 1898 Smith and Wesson Revolver that belonged to Teddy Roosevelt made headlines recently. Roosevelt obtained the gun in 1898 when he was a lieutenant colonel training with the 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry, also known as the Rough Riders. The Rough Riders were the only unit to see combat during the Spanish American War. While Roosevelt received the Smith and Wesson pistol, he preferred a different weapon during the war. The Robb Report writes that "Roosevelt famously used a Colt double-action revolver salvaged from the wreckage of the USS Maine, the US Navy ship that sank in Havana Harbor in February 1898." He kept the Smith and Wesson pistol as a "nightstand pistol." It sold for $910,625 in December, nearly matching the $1 million a Star Wars prop pistol that was used by Harrison Ford's Hans Solo character fetched at an August auction.
Trains Magazine reports that one of the spikes from Promontory Point, Utah will soon be hitting the auction block. Promontory Point is where the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads met in 1869. The transcontinental railroad united the country by rail. You might remember from history class reading about the golden spike being driven when the railroads met. The golden spike now resides in the Stanford University Art Museum. Train Magazine reports that there were three additional spikes used at the ceremony. There were two silver spikes and one with "a gold head, a silver shaft, and an iron spike at the base." That mixed metal spike (also known as the Arizona spike) is the one that's heading to auction. The spike is engraved "Ribbed with iron, clad in silver, and crowned with gold Arizona presents her offering to the enterprise that has banded a continent, dictated a pathway to commerce." The spike is expected to sell for between $300,000 and $500,000.
Steve Wozniak's toolbox will be auctioned online at the end of this month, according to Benzinga.com. Wozniak was one of the founders who formed Apple in 1976. The toolbox is said to be from pre-1978, during Apple's formative years. An Apple Facilities Engineer found the toolbox with Steve Wozniak written on it on a Dymo label. The Facilities Engineer had asked Wozniak for it several years ago and Wozniak told him he could have it. The toolbox bidding starts at $10,000 with an estimate of $20,000 to $30,000.
And there's another big piece of Apple history that will also be sold soon: Apple's first trade sign that was used by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak when the company was still a startup. The nearly nine-foot long opaque sign features a multi-colored apple and has a starting bid of $50,000, with an auction estimate of $100,000 and $200,000. With all these Apple items going to auction, I might just hang onto my old iPhone for a while.
We're offering a Colt revolver, along with over 500 additional items in our next online auction which starts this week and ends on January 31st. Please visit our website https://centralmassauctions.com for links to upcoming events.
Please contact us at: www.centralmassauctions.com (508-612- 6111) info@centralmassauctions.com for antiques and collectibles auction services.