Planning your garden? Try these tried-and-true plants

Find these All-America Selections winners growing at the Arboretum this summer

By Elise Bremer

Mar. 24, 2025

Categories

As winter slowly gives way to spring, many gardeners are browsing seed catalogs or wandering the aisles at the local garden center dreaming up plans for summer gardens. With so many seed companies and seed packets to choose from, finding the tastiest pepper or the showiest zinnia can be a challenge.

For horticulturist Ted Pew, choosing the right plants for the Arboretum’s gardens is the key to a successful growing season. With visitors strolling through the gardens all season long, Pew needs eye-catching plants he can count on to hold up to the challenges of a season of weather and hungry pests.

The Arboretum is proud to be an AAS Display Garden.

Pew relies on plants trialed and tested in Master Gardener seed trials and by All-America Selections, a national non-profit organization that tests new, never-before-sold varieties of plants in trial gardens across North America.

The Arboretum is proud to be an All-America Selections (AAS) Display Garden, featuring AAS winners throughout the gardens that have been trialed by horticulture professionals in zones throughout the country, making every plant a tried-and-true choice for home gardeners.

Find 2024 and 2025 AAS winners growing in the Arboretum’s gardens this summer in the AAS Display Garden (near the Japanese Garden), throughout the Home Demonstration Gardens and in the display of edible vines — including squash, cucumbers and melons — near the Dahlia Trial Garden.