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Most of my picks this year would be at home in a parking lot as well as a garden...
Trees: We planted beautiful trees, like Weeping Nyssa, Cockspur Hawthorne, Ostrya virginiana, Acer Pseudosieboldiana, Fagus sylvatica--but my tree of the year has to be the Honey Locust that grows outside my bedroom window. It is big enough to span the corner, so I see it out of windows on the north and east side and it thrilled me pretty much all season-In Spring, it changed color every day, in Summer , it sounded wonderful with wind blowing through it, in the Fall, it put on another amazing color show. All this from a tree that will also thrive in an inner city median strip. It gets my nomination for tree of the year.
Shrubs: Itea, Aronia, Caryopteris, Daphne, Kerria, Viburnums, Bottlebrush Buckeye, Ilex, Witch Hazel--we planted so many great shrubs, and yet, Id' have to choose something that was fabulous all season: the darn pale pink Blushing Knockout Roses. No trouble at all with them, and they have those gorgeous pink flowers all summer long, into November. Happy as can be in a parking lot...
Perennials: Must have planted 15,000 perennials this year, and my plant of the year is ...Aconitum. I fell in love with this poisonous plant. Gorgeous dark green foliage, intensely colored flowers---A Spring blooming, a summer blooming, and a fall blooming variety, part sun to part shade, and the deer absolutely won't touch them... A plant you could build a novel around...But, you can't plant it in a parking lot. I guess my parking lot choice would be alliums.
Bulbs: 12,0000 in the ground in October....for the fifth year in a row, my favorite bulb is Tulip 'Pink Impression', a Darwin Hybrid.
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