One way I have found to pick the best plants for my garden is to look at the All-America winners. If it has been tested and approved in the All-America Selections (AAS) testing program, I can trust the plant to grow in my yard. They have almost 40 test gardens from Alaska and Canada to California and Florida. It is very useful to have a test garden in a similar climate as your own landscape. They also have over 175 display gardens across the continent that are not used for judging but are used to show gardeners how well the plants grow locally.

AAS trial gardens only accept previously unsold varieties and test around fifty varieties of plants every year. The AAS Award recognizes a flower or vegetable for significant achievements, proven superior to all others on the market. The judges evaluate plants all season long, not just an end of season harvest. Only the entries with the highest nationwide average score are considered to be worthy of an AAS Award.

The judge evaluates entries looking for desirable qualities such as novel flower forms, flower colors, flowers held above the leaves, fragrance, length of flowering season, and tolerance or resistance to disease or pests. Vegetables are judged by such traits as earliness to harvest, total yield, fruit taste, fruit quality, ease of harvest, plant habit and disease and pest resistance.

When you see the red, white and blue logo of All-America Selections on seed packets, bedding plant tags or in catalogs, it is a promise of gardening success. Even AAS winners from several years ago are more likely to prove successful than non-winners. This year there were three flower and three vegetable winners.

The Canna "South Pacific Scarlet" is unusual in that you grow it from seeds, not a tuber. You can plant the seeds as early as February to get a head start on the growing season. The scarlet red flowers are borne on top of a tall plant that loves heat, humidity and full sun. It can even be grown in water gardens and shorelines.

Echinacea "Cheyenne Spirit" is a native coneflower that has a wide variety of flower colors. Pink, red, purple, yellow and white all mix together on this two-foot tall, drought tolerant plant.

This is not your mother's red geranium. It is "Pinto Premium White to Rose." Just like its name, the flowers start out white and turn dark rose pink as they mature, giving the plant more than one color at the same time.

The melon "Melemon" is similar to honeydew, but the fruit are described as personal-sized. However, with a weight of 4.5 pounds, maybe that personal-size is a bit larger than average. The tart tasting fruit will last a month after harvest.

It is always good to see an AAS winning tomato. This one is a cherry tomato on a late blight, early blight, and Fusarium races 1 and 2 resistant plant. Another nice feature is that the fruit remain on the vine after ripening.

I love watermelon and "Harvest Moon" is the first hybrid seedless watermelon to win the AAS award. The vines are shorter; it is earlier ripening and higher yielding than the old heirloom variety "Moon and Stars." It is a triploid variety meaning it has an extra set of genetic material, which means it will need a pollinating variety planted along with it. Seeds for the pollinating variety are included with the seed package for "Harvest Moon."

Email questions to Jeff Rugg at [email protected]. To find out more about Jeff Rugg and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.