Orange AAS Winners Add Warmth and Energy to a Garden
Orange symbolizes fun, energy, vitality, cheer, excitement, adventure, warmth, and good health.
With lots of AAS Winners to choose from, you won’t be at a loss on adding this important color to your garden! The only problem will be deciding which ones to include!
Three orange edibles that are packed with nutrients
Once upon a time, there was an acorn squash named Goldilocks. In summer trials all across North America, the vigorous plant, high yield, disease tolerance, and rich nutty flavor of this variety had our judges saying, “Ahhh, this squash is just right!” like in the fairy tale. The bright orange fruits with uniform shape and color double as an ornamental decoration.
Honeybaby is a very productive variety of winter squash producing numerous fruits on a compact plant. These shorter vines grow 2-3 feet in a semi-bush habit showing great garden vigor. Short, wide fruits are slightly larger, sweet and nutty and meatier than similar comparison varieties. Honeybaby is delicious steamed, baked or made into soups and stews.
This adorable small-fruited butternut squash has an exceptionally sweet taste perfect for just one or two servings. Compact vines are space-saving for smaller gardens or those who just want to fit more plants into the space they have. This AAS Winner is perfect for container gardens and will resist powdery mildew later in the season.
Three orange annuals that are great for pollinators
Big Duck Orange is a new marigold series that continues blooming throughout the season, even longer than the comparisons. These marigolds grow vigorously creating well-branched plants with clean, deep-green foliage. Fully double and beautifully colored 4-inch orange blooms “pop” on the 15” plants and continue blooming through the end of the season. The judges raved about this variety’s vigor, flower size and superior disease, rain, heat and drought resistance.
This newest AAS Winner is compact in habit and well suited for both landscape and container use. This variety is more vigorous, more uniform, and has more basal branching than comparison cannas. It offers an outstanding bloom color in an attractive, vivid bright orange that contrasts nicely with the bright green foliage. Pollinator gardens will love this addition of an attractive canna that sports uniformly colored flowers over a long blooming period.
A “WOW” color in an easy-to-grow zinnia is what Queeny Lime Orange brings to the garden. Sporting lovely, large, dahlia-like blooms on a sturdy, compact plant, this variety provides cut flower gardeners and growers with a wonderful hue for today’s floral trends. The unique color evolves from dark coral/peach/orange to a light peach with a dark center as the flowers age. In the trial gardens, visitors loved the show-stopping color and large blooms, making it this year’s fan-favorite.
More orange annuals to love
NuMex Easter is a compact, well-branched uniform in size plant that displays small clusters of 4-6 fruits on top of the plant in a range from lavender to light yellow and when fully mature a light orange. The colors of the fruit resemble the pastel colors of Easter eggs. Besides Easter, the plants are popular year-round. Excellent in pots, on patios, or for outdoor use.
This AAS Winner has fully double large brilliant orange fade-resistant flowers that bloom abundantly from early summer into fall. Proven leaf spot and mildew resistance and excellent plant vigor provide reliable season-long performance. Compact bushy plants with fresh green foliage need little garden maintenance. Mature plants about 14 inches tall have stems long enough for mini bouquets.
Fiesta Del Sol thrives on the summer heat and humidity, attaining a mature height of 2-3 feet. The single, orange daisy flowers are 2-3 inches across, excellent cut flowers, and may attract butterflies. There is an abundance of daisy flowers so that you can cut many for informal bouquets. Basically, pest-free, not even deer find the hairy leaves of Tithonia rotundifolia worth eating.
More orange vegetables to discover
Cinderella’s Carriage is a dream come true for any princess-loving child who wants to grow their own fairy tale type pumpkin. This bright reddish-orange pumpkin is the first hybrid Cinderella-type pumpkin on the market which results in a higher yield as well as Powdery Mildew resistance in the garden. Robust and vigorous vines produce large fruits ranging from 25-35 pounds, creating a whole grouping of carriages for all the princesses in your family.
Chef’s Choice Orange F1 is a hybrid derived from the popular heirloom Amana Orange which matures late in the season. Now you can experience the wonderful flavor of an orange heirloom tomato in only 75 days from transplant. Chef’s Choice Orange has a wonderfully bright, almost neon, internal color and superior flesh taste and texture for an early maturing orange tomato. Excellent for soups and sauces because the intense color does not fade or discolor when cooked.
Although colored peppers can be difficult to grow, the new AAS Winner Orange Blaze F1 solves that problem. This variety proved itself a winner in AAS Trialing Grounds across North America due to early maturity, sweet flavor, and disease resistance. It matured to a beautiful orange color earlier than the comparisons. Expect very sweet flavor at full orange color about 65-70 days from transplant. Orange Blaze F1 produces 3 to 4-inch long fruits about 1 1/2 inches wide with 2-3 lobes.
Which orange AAS Winners will you grow?
“This post is provided as an education/inspirational service of All-America Selections. Please credit and link to All-America Selections when using all or parts of this article.”
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