One way I have found to pick the best plants for my garden is to look for plants tested and approved in the All-America Selections testing program. It is very helpful to see plants tested in a similar climate as your own landscape. They have more than 60 test gardens from Alaska and Canada to California and Florida. They also have over 175 display gardens all across the continent that are not used for judging, but are used to show gardeners how well the plants grow locally.

All-America Selections trial gardens only accept previously unsold varieties and test around 50 varieties of plants every year. The judges evaluate the 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 a national AAS Award. New this year are regional winners that did especially well in at least one region of North America.

The plants are evaluated 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 and pest. Vegetables are judged for 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. Nationally, in 2014 there were two flower and four vegetable winners.

The Sparkle White Gaura is a perennial that blooms during the first summer, but it is often planted as an annual in containers. It tolerates heat, full sun and dry conditions. It sends up 2-foot tall flower stalks that have 1-2 inch flowers starting at the bottom and continuing up the stalk all summer.

African Sunset Petunia has an orange-red flower that will look especially good in hanging baskets that have the sun behind the basket at sunrise or sunset. Planted in baskets or the ground, it will grow to about 2 feet tall with large 2.5-inch flowers.

If you like fresh, grilled or roasted peppers, you should try planting Mama Mia Giallo sweet peppers in your garden this summer. The 7 to 9-inch peppers grow on a tobacco mosaic virus resistant, 2-foot compact plant, so you can plant several in a small garden.

What vegetable garden is complete without tomatoes? Chef's Choice Orange tomatoes are resistant to cracking, anthracnose and tobacco mosaic virus. The one-pound fruit start early and continue until frost.

Want to eat tomatoes fresh off the vine? Try the new Fantastico grape tomato. This early maturing tomato can be grown in hanging baskets for easy harvest. The tomatoes are crack resistant and the plant is resistant to Late Blight.

The compact 2-foot wide Pick A Bushel cucumber bush cucumber is the regional winner for the Heartland and Great Lakes regions because it sets fruit early. The powdery mildew resistant Cinderella's Carriage pumpkins are pinkish red, weigh 20 to 30 pounds and are suitable for baking or carving into carriages. This pumpkin is a regional winner in the Southeast, Great Lakes, Mountain and Southwest regions. Showing some resistance to at least six tomato diseases, Mountain Merit bears 12 ounce dark red tomatoes on compact plants and it is a Heartland regional winner.

Suntastic Yellow with Black Center is a long name for a short 2-foot tall sunflower. This dwarf plant has up to 20 6-inch flowers during the summer and it is a Great Lakes regional winner. In over 80 years of AAS awards, this is the first time a Penstemon has won. Arabesque Red has 2-foot tall stalks of red-edged, white-throated tube shaped flowers that are attractive to hummingbirds and butterflies. It is a winner in the Heartland, Mountain, Northwest, Southwest and West regions.

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.