Featured Five 2026: Favorites from Proven Winners Carleton Display Gardens
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EmailAre you seeking proven performers for the season ahead? Check out Part 2 of our series highlighting top picks from the 2026 Michigan Garden Plant Tour trial sites.
Each year, Michigan State University collaborates with Michigan’s leading young plant producers to host a complimentary open house at their trial sites and display gardens. This event offers growers, landscapers, and retail professionals a valuable opportunity to explore a diverse array of ornamental crops and assess their performance in both in-ground and container settings.
The 2026 Michigan Garden Plant Tour ran from July 27 to August 7, showcasing the latest innovations and standout varieties across multiple locations. Part 1 of this series covered Michigan State University Extension’s top picks from the trial garden at DGI Propagators. Part 2 will feature the favorites from Proven Winners Carleton.
Featured Five at Proven Winners Carleton
If you didn’t get a chance to walk the Proven Winners display gardens at Proven Winners Carleton (formerly Four Star Greenhouse) this year, let me take you through the layout. Their display starts by leading you through their new arrivals for the 2026-2027 catalog displayed in both aquapot containers as well as in hanging baskets. You’re able to get a full picture of what these new plants have to offer in containers by themselves as well as in combination with other suggested varieties.
You then move into display areas that feature new varieties within in-ground display beds. Continuing through the garden you’ll also encounter Proven Winners top-sellers as well as previous years’ award winners. The 2026 season featured several exciting new introductions from Proven Winners, but five selections stood out for their season-long color, garden performance, and ability to thrive despite Michigan’s hot and humid conditions.
From pollinator favorites to eye-catching container plants, these varieties earned a spot on this year's featured favorites list:
- Salvia Outshine ‘Orchid’ and Outshine ‘Red’– Proven Winners
- Calibrachoa Superbells Double Midnight ‘Magenta’ – Proven Winners
- Nemesia Aromance ‘Plum Honey’ – Proven Winners
- Pentas Sunstar ‘Red II’ – Proven Winners
- Combo ‘Saffron Sunrise’– Proven Winners
Outshine ‘Orchid’ and Outshine ‘Red’ Salvia
Salvias have become increasingly popular with gardeners looking for drought-tolerant plants that provide long-lasting color and support pollinators. The new Outshine series addresses many of the challenges that have traditionally limited Salvia greggii hybrids by combining exceptional branching with prolific flowering.
Commonly called Autumn Sage, salvia greggii is native to Mexico and south-central and west Texas. This relatively low maintenance plant boasts drought-tolerance, low fertility requirements and deer-resistance.
Throughout the season, both Outshine 'Orchid' (Photo 2) and 'Red' (Photos 3 and 4) produced a continuous display of blooms held just above the foliage. The vibrant orchid-pink and glowing red flowers attracted a steady stream of pollinators while creating colorful mounds in both containers and landscape beds.
Superbells Double Midnight ‘Magenta’ Calibrachoa
This fully double calibrachoa features intense magenta blooms accented by a magenta-red eye, creating a dramatic look in containers and hanging baskets (Photos 5 and 6). Beyond its striking appearance, the variety demonstrated excellent garden performance, blooming early and continuing to flower through the season.
Proven Winners notes that the variety is both heat and cold tolerant, helping to extend its sales and landscape performance window. Its medium vigor also made it easy to combine with other varieties in mixed containers.
Aromance ‘Plum Honey’ Nemesia
Nemesia often shines during mild weather, but relatively few varieties continue performing well once temperatures rise. Aromance 'Plum Honey' impresses with its unique bicolor flowers that blend shades of plum-purple and yellow (Photo 7). The compact, upright-mounded habit remains tidy throughout the season (Photos 8 and 9), while the sweetly fragrant flowers attract both pollinators and gardeners alike.
Proven Winners highlights its strong heat and humidity tolerance, making it a standout among this year's nemesia introductions.
Pentas Sunstar ‘Red II’
When summer temperatures climb, few annuals perform as reliably as pentas. Sunstar 'Red II' proved its value throughout the trial season with large clusters of true red flowers held above strong, well-branched plants (Photos 10 and 11). This improved selection was developed to provide more consistent color and uniformity across the Sunstar series. Known for outstanding heat tolerance, the Sunstar series produced continuous color through the hottest weeks of summer while attracting butterflies, hummingbirds, and other pollinators.
With no deadheading necessary, continuous rebloom, and relatively low fertilizer demand, those who haven’t tried Pentas in a while should consider this updated series. As extreme temperatures become more common in our region, adding lower maintenance, heat tolerant varieties to your offerings is a great idea.
Combo ‘Saffron Sunrise’
While individual varieties often receive most of the attention, combination planters demonstrate how plants perform together in a patio pot or hanging basket in the real-world. The combination 'Saffron Sunrise' was featured as one of the 2026 Proven Winners recipes of the year (Photo 12). Superbells ‘Tropical Sunrise’, Jamesbrittenia Safari ‘Dusk’ and Supertunia ‘Saffron Finch’ came together to create warm shades of yellow and salmon-orange plus a pop of purple.
The complementary tones blended to create a bright, cheerful display that remained balanced throughout the summer. The combination provided excellent color contrast and texture while maintaining a professional, finished appearance that gardeners could easily maintain at home.
Other Notable Varieties at Proven Winners Carleton
Though not new, some other notable varieties stood out in the display gardens this year. Heart to Heart ‘Fast Flash’ Caladium provided a dramatic foliage display with brightly patterned leaves that provide a season-long color option for the shade (Photo 13). Its bold coloration stood out even in low-light areas, offering gardeners an easy way to add tropical flair and texture (Photo 14).
If Caladiums would be a new crop for you as a grower, ‘Fast Flash’ is a reliable variety with a number of accolades, including 2020 and 2024 ‘Top Performer’ awards from the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanic Gardens, plus the ‘Best of Genus- Sun and Shade’ awards from Penn State University.
Visitors also enjoyed comparing the performance of Proven Winners lineup of Supertunias which have a wide range in terms of both flower size (Giant, large, and miniature) and habit (mounded or trailing). Two petunias that stood out to me were: Supertunia Royal Velvet II and Supertunia Mini Vista Aquamarine.
Royal Velvet II is a vigor 3 mounding/trailing variety with large blossoms, while Mini Vista Aquamarine is also vigor 3 but with smaller blooms on a more compact plant. Together, they highlighted the diversity of habits and flower size available within the Supertunia lineup while producing nearly identical flower color.
Even though America’s 250th anniversary year has passed, there’s always an opportunity to feature a patriotic combination of red, white and blue flowers. This year, the trial gardens featured a combo containing Evolvulus ‘Blue My Mind’, Salvia Outshine ‘Red’ and Euphorbia ‘Diamond Frost’.
The combination paired the true-blue flowers of evolvulus with vibrant red salvia spikes and airy white blooms of Diamond Frost. Beyond its striking color contrast, the combination maintained excellent performance throughout the summer and demonstrated a red, white and blue combo that would make any patriotic shopper proud.
Check out the other articles in our series for more favorites of 2026:
- Part 1: Featured Five 2026: Favorites from DGI Propagators Trial Gardens
- Part 2: Featured Five 2025: Favorites from Proven Winners Carleton
- Part 3: Featured Five 2025: Favorites from Mast Young Plants
- Part 4: Featured Five 2025: Favorites from MSU Trial Gardens
- Part 5: Featured Five 2026: Favorites from Pell Greenhouses
- Part 6: Featured Five 2025: Favorites from Raker-Roberta’s Young Plants
- Part 7: Featured Five 2025: Favorites from Walters Gardens
- Part 8: Let’s Play Nice and Shine: Twelve Stellar Compatible Combinations
