Supertunia Tiara Blue earns Classic City Award

By NORMAN WINTER

Tribune News Service (TNS) A wards for plants come in a variety of names: Louisiana Super Plant, Mississippi Medallion, as an example, and in Georgia where I live, it is the Classic City Award given out by the University of Georgia. The UGA Trial Gardens said in a press release that the winners represent the best overall in the gardens and were ranked on a scale of one to five points. The Classic City Award Winners for 2024 were named a few weeks ago and Supertunia Tiara Blue petunia was one of the selections. It goes a little further than that to my eyes and that is a perfect score. Straight across the board, all evaluation dates in the hottest summer one might endure in Georgia, it was a score of 5 out of 5.

This is a Tiara you can hang your hat on. Well I suppose in reality it is a crown like Tiara that will be the jewel of mixed containers and landscape beds alike. As the other universities give their award tallies there is no doubt the trophy case will surely get crowded. I wrote about Supertunia Tiara Blue several weeks ago but there has been a lot more to my education.

Just to remind you, there will be two Supertunia Tiara petunias making their debut in 2025. There will be Supertunia Tiara Pink and Supertunia Tiara Blue. As you might expect they will certainly work well together. But there are some combinations not to be overlooked. Though mine also came through the summer, I didn’t have enough plants to really get creative, but that has changed.

Subsequently, I am finding the Supertunia Tiara Blue is even more beautiful than I thought. Proven Winners calls the color blue-violet and that is certainly spot on. In my yard, which I often tell you is sun-challenged, is really a daily excursion into shifting light. It will be full sun for a couple of scorching hours, then it gets filtered light as the sun moves, followed by more sun, though not quite as hot. The blue is intense during the filtered light moments and more violet during the direct sun hours. The white centers add an artistic touch.

Supertunia Tiara Blue is about 12 inches tall with a 24inch spread. It plays nice with almost all partners. One of the most dramatic partnerships I’ve tried was with Supertunia Honey. Honey has golden yellow blossoms with blushes of pink or rose creating a palette of sunset colors. So the look is definitely a complementary partnership but you feel it is an artist rendering.

Another favorite combination is like three-part harmony. It is not exactly triadic harmony, that being three colors equal distance apart on the artist color wheel, but it is close and it has some very rare associations. The three partners are Supertunia Persimmon, Supertunia Mini Vista Yellow and the star of this column, Supertunia Tiara Blue.

Supertunia Persimmon is orange with a yellow throat, meaning you have two Supertunia petunias with painted throats. The Supertunia Persimmon is the polar opposite of the Tiara Blue when the blue is most intense. When the Tiara Blue looks more violet, it is the polar opposite or complement of the Supertunia Mini Vista Yellow. One other color feature is that the yellow in the throat of Supertunia Persimmon echoes the yellow of the Supertunia Mini Vista Yellow. I realize after writing that I need color therapy.

There is one more thing ever so important to you, the gardener. Each of the plants in that combination has won awards and even better each one will have at least one perfect score by their name. This means you are getting the most bang for your gardening dollar. While I am relishing their beauty in November, you will want to make sure you are an early shopper in the spring as these will be the hottest plants on the bench.

Norman Winter, horticulturist, garden speaker and author of “Toughas- Nails Flowers for the South” and “Captivating Combinations: Color and Style in the Garden.” Follow him on Facebook @NormanWinterThe GardenGuy.

ABOVE: A wall of colors shows Supertunia Tiara Blue with other Supertunia petunias like Persimmon, Honey, Mini Vista Yellow and Sweet Caroline Light Green sweet potato draping downward. BELOW: Looking like candy, this container features Supertunias Persimmon, Mini Vista Yellow and Tiara Blue all of which are award winners in university trials. BACKGROUND: Supertunia Tiara Blue shows out at the University of Georgia Trial Gardens where it was selected as a 2024 Classic City Award Winner.

Photos by Norman Winter / TNS

Norman Winter

On Gardening