Each year numerous seed company and university trial gardens are visited by designated judges to select winners of the All-America Selections. They view hundreds of new flowers and vegetables to select those which have proved superior in many objective testing locations.

Some years as many as four or five flowers and that many vegetables are chosen. More often, it is only a couple of each. For 1995 only three flowers and no vegetables were chosen.

Purple Wave petunia, Celebrity Chiffon Morn petunia and Indian Summer Rudbeckia hirta, were the chosen ones. All three of these grew last year in the AAS Display Garden on the SEMO University Campus. Seeds of all three will be available at garden centers, nurseries or in mail-order catalogs this year.

Gardeners of North America now can count on All-America Selections winners to produce well in their gardens, so they look for the red, white and blue shield (the logo) when selecting seeds, or plants when bedding plants are available. This logo indicates that the variety is the best in its class judged by a group of skilled experts who volunteer their services.

Flowers are evaluated for color, resistance to disease, insect and weather stress, prolonged flowering, attractiveness of blossom, uniformity and fragrance.

This system has served both the seed industry and home gardeners well for the last 50 years. The following are the three chosen flowers for this year.

Purple Wave Petunia

If you are looking for a low growing or massing plant for a sunny location, Purple Wave begins a new class of petunias. It will grow 2 to 4 feet in one season, and all of its growth is horizontal. Its single blooms are deep rose in color, but in Burpees catalog it is described as a "magic carpet" of deep burgundy-purple. One plant is said to fill a hanging basket.

Purple Wave grows only 6 to 8 inches tall and remains low and spreading. Plants will perform best in full sun, and are ideal for hanging baskets, window baskets or deck planters. Another favorable characteristic is that it will recover rapidly from any severe weather such as thunderstorms. It is known also to flower throughout the growing season until frost.

Celebrity chiffon Morn Petunia

Celebrity Chiffon Morn adds a new pastel color to the welcome class of floribunda petunias, which are improved multiflora types with somewhat larger flowers. The flower coloration of this variety blends from pink to cream to white in the throat, making them ideal for blending with other annual flowers.

It is bred for earliness with a compact branching habit, making it also ideal for hanging baskets, patio planters and ceramic pots when given at least a half-day of sunshine.

Indian Summer rudebeckia

The third flower of the 1995 award winners is a black-eyed Susan variety called Indian Summer. Some of the older varieties of this group we have known as Gloriosa daisies. This new one has huge golden yellow blooms 6 to 9 inches across and are single or semidouble with a contrasting dark center.

This new variety will grow to 3 feet in height and because of branching habit doesn't need staking. Another favorable characteristic is that it is heat and drought tolerant and will thrive even in poor soil. Like other summer flowers, it will perform best in full sun with adequate water and fertilizer.

Other recent flower winners of the AAS award include Lady lavender (1994); Mount Blanc nierembergia, Imagination verbena, Tropical Rose canna, Lady in Red salvia (1992);Red Plume gaillardia, Freckles geranium, Padjaradja pansy and Pretty in Rose vinca (1991); and Summer Pastels achillea, Castle Pink celosia, Jolly Joker pansy and Scarlet Splendor zinnia (1990).

While visiting my favorite brother, Carl, in Anna we saw the first crocus of spring blooming in his yard the last day of January. Whatever is the first of any spring flowering bulb, it is always exciting. Not so, at our new house because our bulbs didn't get into the ground until just a week or so before Santa came.

However, when new shrubs were planted, a few sentimental plants were moved from our former residence. Among them a Lenten Rose (helleborus) from the garden of the late Lawrence Fuhrmann, a great horticulturist. This perennial sends up foliage of tough hardy evergreen, with large split leaves. Peeping out of the snow in January comes this bloom of dusky rose to green, looking much in shape like a buttercup. Our first introduction to the Lenten Rose was at the art museum in Atlanta, where a large bed was blooming and was viewed from above. Not a beautiful bedding flower, but exotic and unusual.

~Mary Blue is a resident of Cape Girardeau and an avid gardener.