There’s been quite a flood of new coreopsis on the market in recent years, some for perennial borders and others for summer containers. But now comes a hardy annual mixture in a wide range of colours most not seen before in annual coreopsis.
Coreopsis are annuals and perennials in the daisy family, until recently mainly seen in orange and yellow shades. Many are very prolific and easy to grow.
‘Unbelievable’ is the first annual coreopsis in the newer colours. Now I know not everyone likes mixtures, using mixtures always makes planning your borders a more unpredictable business. The colours include white, cream, primrose, pink, lavender shades, crimson and yellow but at least they all have the unifying factor of that dark eye. The colours are similar to some of the cuttings-raised Coloropsis Series developed for containers.
And they’re not the dumpy little squibs that I’ve often complained about in new annuals. But ‘Unbelievable’ reaches about 1m/40in in height and as well as a colourful border planting, my preference would be to grow it in a row for cutting and to cut individual stems in colours that suit your latest bouquet. They'll be lovely in wild, cottagey harvestings.
Tom Stimpson, Plant Product Manager at Mr Fothergill’s Seeds who have an exclusive on this variety, told me more about it: “It’s difficult to say how many individual colours there are,” he said, “but the mix does contain pinks and rusty colours, ones not really associated with seed raised coreopsis. The mix focuses on these more unusual colours with the more common colours selected out. The flowers are around the size of a 2p piece.
“This mixture was found by the Dutch seedsman the late Kaes Sahin and has since been developed and refined. We chose the name because ‘unbelievable’ was a frequent catch word Kaes used to use!”
Coreopsis ‘Unbelievable’ is available only from Mr Fothergill’s Seeds.