Welcome @NAME@..... Welcome to the first edition of The New Perennial Insider, sent to members of our New Perennial Club at Heritage Perennials®. Each month we will be featuring a close-up look at a new plant or group of perennials, giving you the "insider story" on how that plant came to exist, pictures, descriptions and growing information. We'll be including feedback as well from our New Perennial Club Members, telling how these plants are performing in actual gardens across North America. Every plant has it's good points and it's bad points, and we're not afraid to tell both sides of the story! We welcome your feedback, and encourage you to login and leave your comments through the New Perennial Club. Remember, each time you register a plant or leave a comment, it gives you another chance to win our great monthly draws for prizes! Just click the CLUB HOMEPAGE link above for full details. NOTE: We invite you to participate whether you live in Canada or the USA. And, it doesn't matter if you purchased the plant as a Heritage Perennial® in a blue pot. So long as it appears as a qualifying plant in our New Perennial Club, we encourage your feedback and comments. To pull up the entire list of close to 500 qualifying Club plants, just head to www.perennials.com and type NPC into the #2 Search box, then follow the links to find the 7-digit plant number needed to register each one. John Valleau, editor of www.perennials.com (jv@valleybrook.com)

NEW MILLENNIUM DELPHINIUMS — The Best-kept Secret from Down Under!

Every gardener drools over the idea of tall and stately spires of Delphiniums, lush with rich jewel-toned blossoms in the early summer garden. Yet, for so many of us, the standard types of tall Pacific Giant Delphiniums so widely sold often fizzle out or languish in the heat and humidity, eventually succumbing to powdery mildew infection and a host of other pests and diseases. The older series and strains of Delphiniums seem to grow and perform their best in regions with cool nights and cool to moderate summer conditions: think of the Canadian Prairies, Pacific Northwest, or Northeastern Maritime provinces and states. Winter hardiness isn't so much an issue as is tolerance to hot and muggy weather.

Until recently, Delphinium breeding has occurred mainly in England (the famous Blackmore & Langdon selections) and in California, where the Pacific Giants series were developed back in the 1950's and 60's as relatively stable seed strains that became an instant industry standard. Professional and amateur breeders have dabbled extensively with Delphiniums as well over the years, but most of their breakthroughs have required vegetative propagation (i.e. division or cuttings), so these have been expensive to produce commercially, and have remained mostly in the hands of collectors and specialty Delphinium nurseries.

Despite their ease of production and widespread availability, some horticulturists and growers feel that over the past twenty years or so the Pacific Giants strains of Delphiniums have developed a weak habit, susceptibility to pests and diseases and also polluted shades — 'Black Knight' today is less reliable for producing true colour from seed than it once was. Unknown to most of us, Terry Dowdeswell of Dowdeswell's Delphiniums in Wanganui, New Zealand began quietly working back in the 1990's. His hybridizing and selection over many years has created a remarkable new group of tall Delphinium strains called the New Millennium Hybrids. Heritage Perennials® introduced these new selections in Canada in the spring of 2005, though they were offered previously by GardenImport a year or two ago, and by several American nurseries.