2015 New Product Introductions

Sneak peek at Burpee’s 2015 lineup reveals top garden trends

WARMINSTER, Penn. (Oct. 21, 2014) – What will American home gardeners be growing in 2015? A sneak peek at the new product offerings from W. Atlee Burpee & Co. offers a glimpse into the future of home gardens across all growing zones.

Welcome to the earliest-ever preview of new offerings from Burpee’s official 2015 catalog. While home gardeners have to wait until just before the New Year for the new catalog to land in their mailboxes, Burpee wants to share this sneak peek of breakout selections for the coming garden season.

Candy Mountain Sunflower

• Summer Squash, ‘Cupcake’ hybrid: Delectable oblate 2-5” fruits impart perfectly calibrated flavor: somewhat sweet, somewhat savory. Go-to squash for roasting, slicing, grilling, boiling, and stuffing, ‘Cupcake’ combines patty-pan’s rich, sweet flavor and zucchini’s soft skin. Large, trailing plant yields dozens of round, green squash.

• Tomato, ‘Jersey Boy’ hybrid: This 8-ounce super tomato hybrid is the brilliant combination of the sublime sweet-sour tang of ‘Brandywine’ and the classic rich color, shapeliness, yield and performance of ‘Rutgers’. Indeterminate.

• Tomato, ‘Cloudy Day’ hybrid: Cool weather? Late Season? ‘Cloudy Day’ thrives in cooler temperatures; indeterminate plant laughs off early and late blight. ‘Cloudy Day’s juicy, flavorful, glossy 4-5 oz. pure-red cocktail fruits infuse salads, soups, and sauces with tomato excellence. Indeterminate.

• Sweet Pepper, ‘Long Tall Sally’ hybrid:This succulent, flavorful Italian frying pepper works culinary magic whether stuffed, fried, roasted or grilled. Hybrid yields an abundance of glossy, thin-walled, light green 8-inch Cubanelle fruits.

• Hot Pepper, ‘Big Boss Man’ hybrid:Big, bold, dark green fruits deliver sensational flavor and just-right mild heat. This disease-resistant ancho-poblano hybrid produces an outsize yield of extra-large 7-by-3-inch fruits from the first harvest, with a Scoville rating of 1,500-4,000.

• Lavender, ‘Platinum Blonde’: A fragrant masterpiece in mauve bred by Spanish breeder Juan Momparler Albors. Leaves of gray-green are edged with wide, creamy yellow margins. Perfect for containers and borders.

• Zinnia haageana, ‘Color Crackle’: Gorgeous bicolor double flowers on vertical 16-24-inch spikes create a sensation in a favorite sunny border. Hardy and floriferous. Available for the first time as a single seed selection.

• Sunflower, ‘Candy Mountain’: Tall, branching sunflowers produce single head “junior” plants blooming in all directions with vibrant burgundy on yellow flame. Great variety for small space or used as vertical interest, or for cut flowers.

• Blackberry, ‘Prime Ark Freedom’: Produces two blackberry harvests a year. The first-ever thornless primocane fruiting blackberry, ‘Freedom’ delivers outstanding fruit size and flavor. Fruits the very first year, early summer and fall (climate permitting).

• Raspberry ‘Glencoe’: Velvety-purple, intensely sweet berries. Developed by the Scottish Crop Research Institute. Bushy plants have spine-free canes for easy picking (and snacking). Berries, amazingly sweet and favorable, are perfect for wines, sauces and preserves.

Now Trending
As one of the largest seed companies in America, Burpee tracks American gardening trends, questions and concerns. Rising in popularity this past gardening season were asparagus, rhubarb, raspberries and blackberries, signaling a gardening renaissance of edible perennials. Chili peppers are hot in every sense—commanding additional space in America’s garden plots. Gardeners are increasingly purchasing plants to attract butterflies and hummingbirds, and help protect bee populations. Not surprisingly, tomatoes remain the number one vegetable grown in American home gardens, with customers favoring the Burpee ‘SuperSauce’ hybrid (2013), a giant, virtually seedless paste tomato, and the new ‘SteakHouse’ variety (2014), the largest hybrid tomato ever bred.  Others in the top ten sellers included Burpee’s revolutionary ‘On Deck Corn’, the first-ever sweet corn that can be grown in a container, and ‘Ms. Mars’ sunflower, selected as one of the top 20 plants in the Chelsea Flower Show’s 2014 ‘Plant of the Year’ competition. 

Burpee: Always Non-GMO
American gardeners continue to ask “Does Burpee sell GMO seeds?” The answer is always the same: “Burpee never has and never will purchase GMO seed for our products.” Gardeners can find Burpee’s non-GMO flower and vegetable plants and seeds at www.burpee.com. The company’s website also offers free garden resources, articles, how-to videos and garden supplies.

Burpee: Innovating for 138 Years

Since 1876, Burpee has provided American gardeners with breakthrough varieties of flowers, vegetables, herbs and fruits. The company brought to the marketplace the breeding of ‘Iceberg’ lettuce (1894); introduced the world to the first yellow sweet corn (1902); introduced the ‘Fordhook’ lima bean (1907); invented the breakthrough ‘Big Boy’ hybrid tomato (1948); the first white marigold (1976); and the ‘Sugar Snap’ pea (1979), among hundreds of other innovations.

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About Burpee
A true heritage brand, the Burpee Co. was founded in Philadelphia in 1876 by W. Atlee Burpee, an 18-year-old with a passion for plants and animals, and a mother willing to lend him $1,000 of “seed money” to get him started in business. Within 25 years he had developed the largest, most innovative seed company in the world. By 1915 Burpee was mailing a million catalogs a year to America’s gardeners. Still located in the greater Philadelphia, Burpee is owned and operated by George Ball, a third-generation plantsman. All Burpee products are non-GMO. Burpee’s seeds and plants are available — and guaranteed — for all growing zones. The company’s highly recognizable catalog is available in late December each year. Seeds and plants can be ordered by mail, phone and online.  For more information, gardening techniques, recipes, gift cards and more, visit //www.burpee.com or call 1-800-888-1447. The Burpee community can be found on Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter.