Item:                       Press Release

Title:                      Top 10 Seeds for New Gardeners

Run Date:              FOR IMMEDIATE USE

Contact:                 Walt Yates

Words:                   575

Photo:                    High-resolution digital photos available on request

Starting a garden from seed is an incredible experience for a new gardener. To maximize their success with growing flowers, herbs, and vegetable from seed, new gardeners can benefit from choosing seeds proven to be easy and reliable. So which seeds are best for new gardeners? Park Seed Company’s Director of Seed Product, Stephanie Turner, has created a list of ten seed suggestions for those new to gardening. The following are examples of seeds that are perfect for new gardeners. They are not only easy

to grow, but will also yield delightful results.   

#1. Bean Festina
Phaseolus vulgaris Festina

Resistant to Common Bean Mosaic Virus, this vigorous, bushy little plant sets nice straight pods about 6 inches long and full of rich flavor and nutrition.

#2. Squash Park's Straightneck
Park's Straightneck

Ripening 8 to 9 inches long, these slender, heavy squashes have very thin skins for a more tender, succulent bite. You get the same yield from fewer plants than other varieties.

#3. Cucumber Salad Bush Hybrid
Cucumis sativus Salad Bush Hybrid

Salad Bush bears a big harvest of dark green, cylindrical, smooth 8-inch fruit. These plants have an improved tolerance of many diseases.

#4. Lettuce Summer Glory Blend
Lactuca sativa Summer Glory Blend

Even if your summer weather sometimes begins in March, you can enjoy a long, delicious season of fresh lettuce with our custom-blended mixture of 7 heat-tolerant varieties. Specially selected to resist flowering and keep their flavorful crunch right into summer, the outstanding lettuces in this mixture will keep you in fresh leaves three seasons out of the year.

#5. Basil Large Leaf Italian
Ocimum basilicum Large Leaf Italian

This Genovese-type basil grows 18 to 24 inches high and 12 to 15 inches wide. The dark green, shiny leaves grow up to 3 inches long on a tall, erect plant that is slow to flower. Small clusters of pink flowers are borne in summer.

#6. Parsley Italian Plain Leaf
Petroselinum crispum Italian Plain Leaf

Flat-leafed Parsley is far more nutritious than the curly type. Harvest it as needed, but fairly regularly so that the plants keep sprouting new stems. In mild climates, you can continue to cut it throughout winter.

#7. Marigold Park's Whopper Yellow

This is simply a terrific garden plant, reaching 18 inches tall, 12 inches wide, and blooming just as freely as its smaller cousins all summer long. And Park's Whopper is tolerant of Botrytis, a fungus that attacks Marigolds, so expect healthy plants all season.

#8. Sunflower 'Waooh!'
Helianthus annuus 'Waooh!'

Just 24 inches high with 4-inch blooms, this plant never needs staking, yet it tall enough to make a big impression in the sunny border, beds, and other settings. Ideal for cutflowers because the blooms are pollen-free and the plants set so many flowers in such a compact space.

Morning Glory Heavenly Blue
Ipomoea tricolor Heavenly Blue

Perfect for covering unsightly buildings, tumbling over fences, or decorating any vertical garden structure from the mailbox to the lamppost, Heavenly Blue blooms over a very long summer and fall season and is pest-free.

Zinnia Park's Picks Mix
Zinnia elegans Park's Picks Mix

Zinnias are one of the easiest annuals to grow, and attract butterflies to the garden. They thrive in the sun and heat of summer, and ask only well-drained soil. This mix contains coral, crimson, salmon-rose, scarlet, red, rose, lilac, pink, purple, orange, yellow, and white.

The Park Seed Company (www.parkseed.com), one of the oldest and largest mail-order seed companies in America, has been providing top-quality seeds, bulbs, plants, and accessories to generations of American gardeners since 1868. With the motto “Your success and pleasure are more to Park than your money,” Park Seed has always been known not only for its superior seed and plants, but also for its helpful garden advice and friendly service.

Contact:

Walt Yates

Director of Public Relations

Park Seed Company

1 Parkton Avenue

Greenwood, SC 29647-001

800-622-1012

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