LADY BUG SAYS: WINTER BRINGS CHANCE FOR ARMCHAIR GARDENING

Always January is a renewal. This is the time of the year when the future suddenly becomes the first day of the year. This is the time when gardeners suddenly become aware of the coming season in the garden.

Armchair gardening is one of the best occupations of winter weather. When snow, sleet, ice and sub-zero temperatures keep us inside, it is a good time to think about what went wrong with last year's garden and how we can improve this coming one. It is a good time to design the spring garden, whether it is a perennial, vegetable or annual one. Draw up a plan and choose some of the exciting new plants to fill it.

New plants come to us each year and 1991 is no different. New catalogs are filled with them, and catalogs there are. While spending the Christmas holiday in the Atlanta area with our daughter and her family, some 18 new catalogs came in the mountain of mail that was here to greet us on our return (through the fog) home. These 18 joined many other catalogs that came earlier.

The most publicized new varieties of plants are those labeled All-America Selections. To earn this coveted award, plants of new varieties must perform well in trial gardens all over the States, Canada and Mexico.

In many years these awards go to plants with new colors or color blends in addition to improvements in vigor and cultural adaptations.

This year there are seven brilliantly flowering annual flowers and three high yielding vegetables. Since we attended the Field Trials of Ball Seed Co. and PanAmerican Seed Co. in West Chicago, IL in August, we have already seen all of these new introductions, and each is outstanding.

This year's AAS winners are Tivoli squash, Golden Crown watermelon and Kentucky Blue bean for the vegetables; red Plume gaillardia, Freckles, Padparadja pansy, Pretty in Rose, Parasol, Pretty in Pink in flowers; and Maxim Marina Pansy for the bedding plant category.

Last week in the Atlanta area, the newly planted yellow and purple happy faces of pansies bowed their little heads in the 20-degree temperatures. Pansies are planted everywhere in parkways, suburb entrances, many public gardens and in private gardens, window boxes and other outside containers. Being of sturdy stock, they will again be perky as soon as the temperatures rise into more reasonable numbers.

It is no wonder that three vincas were picked as 1991 AAS (All-American Selections) as this class of flowers is becoming increasingly popular for its looks and its versatile uses.

Vincas like full sun and are extremely tolerant of both heat and drought. With their bushy habit, the plants fill in well in beds and landscape planting. Parasol has blooms twice as large as usual of white with a distinct red eye. Pretty in Pink offers the first true pink and Pretty in Rose offers the first deep violet-rose shades among vincas. Both have flowers with overlapping petals, bushy upright growing habits and dark, dark green foliage.

Freckles geranium has distinctive bi-color flowers that provide color throughout the growing season in pink and rose combination. The 15-inch plant will produce as well in the sunny garden as in a container.

The new Red Plume annual gaillardia really makes a bright splash of color in the summer garden. Grown on compact and branching plants, they do not mind the severe weather, drought or heat.

All of these annual flowers with an outstanding ability to provide garden color all season will be available in all the new catalogs, at flower and garden centers and later in the spring as bedding plants.

The three vegetables are Kentucky Blue pole bean, Tivoli spaghetti squash and Golden Crown Watermelon.

Kentucky Blue is the introduction of Dr. Calvin Lamborn, who introduced the Sugar Snap pea, an AAS winner several years ago. Since that introduction, he has bred many, many peas and beans that have been on the market. Along with Dr. Charles H. Korns we attended a meeting in St. Louis where Dr. Lamborn told of his work with peas and beans.

Tivoli, the new spaghetti squash, differs from older varieties by being compact in its growth habits, while older ones creep all over the garden. These plants may be planted only two feet apart for good yield.

Golden Crown watermelon is a refrigerator size golden yellow fruit, but its flesh is the traditional red with black seeds. Seeds mature 80 days after sowing, and in only 60 days after transplanting seedlings.

Each seed company has its own new introductions in fruits, vegetables, flowers, and landscape plants. Try some of the new plants for 1991.