Favourite All America Selections Winners I Grew This Year

Here we are at the end of November and it won’t be long before the garden has a thick blanket of snow.

Memories of this past season....

This year has seen a lot of disruption in our lives as we decided to finally complete some long overdue renovations, both inside & outside.  One of the garden projects was a new path to replace the uneven, dilapidated path from the driveway to the deck/backyard.  It had gone from bad to practically unusable last year when we replaced the deck:

Before: What a mess!

After: Believe it or not, these are the same bricks as the old walkway!

We reused the bricks from the old path - turned upside down as I wasn't a fan of the beveled edges - in addition to a pile that we saved from the front walkway that was redone years ago.  We're so happy with how it turned out!  Still some cleanup to do but am excited to go plant shopping next year to fill up the empty beds.

I knew it would be a busy year so I purposefully cut back on my plans for the garden.  That didn’t, however, stop me from growing quite a lot (maybe too much?) from seed.  I always tend to overdo the seed starting, but honestly, that’s nothing new – I just can’t help myself, no matter how hard I try 😉

Amongst the many seeds I started this spring, there were quite a few AAS winners & today, I'll be  highlighting a few of my favourites.

Let’s start with the veggies first.

Pepper (sweet) ‘Pick-N-Pop Yellow’ – AAS 2025 (National)

Pick-N-Pop Yellow - a brand new 2025 AAS winner - is a snacking pepper that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Pick-N-Pop Yellow together with another 
AAS winner 'San Joaquin' jalapeno

The plants were loaded with peppers that were incredibly juicy and sweet.  In fact, most didn’t even make it back into the house as they were the perfect snack while working in the garden.

Thick walls & juicy interior

The plants were also quite compact and stocky, making them ideal for smaller spaces.

Specs:  65 days from transplant to fully ripe; 24” tall.

Squash (pattypan) ‘Green Lightening’ – AAS 2025 (National)

When it comes to summer squash, it’s hit or miss around here as the squash vine borer usually attacks before we get a good harvest.  This year, I was able to thwart the dreaded borer by sowing my seeds super late – in mid-July.  And that’s what makes Green Lightening, another 2025 AAS winner, so wonderful.

It’s a quick maturing pattypan variety that goes from seed to harvest in as little as 48 days!  That means that I was harvesting from my July sowing by the end of August…and no borer in sight!  Aside from it’s quick maturity, this pattypan is also gorgeous – I mean, look at those stripes! – and it’s just as delicious as it looks.

Specs:  48 days from direct sowing to harvest (40 days from transplant); 2.5-5” fruits; bush type.

Pepper (sweet) ‘Dragonfly’ – AAS 2022 (National)

I grew Dragonfly for the first time last year & enjoyed it so much I decided to grow it again this season.  Dragonfly – a 2022 AAS winner – gives me the earliest bell pepper harvest ever - I was picking by mid-July!

The peppers have thick, juicy walls & while I could wait until they reach their fully red stage, I usually picked them when they are deep purple with a beautiful contrasting lime green interior so that the plants continued to produce, right up to frost.

Specs:  75 days from transplant (to purple/green stage); 24-36” tall.

Broccoli ‘Purple Magic’ - AAS 2024 (National)

I didn’t grow broccoli this year (due to the aforementioned “cutting back”) but I do want to give a shout-out to one of my favourite varieties from last year – ‘Purple Magic’.

This one is a 2024 winner with an absolutely gorgeous purple head.  The very large head (the one pictured ended up weighing over 3 lbs!) is tight & uniform and, most importantly, has a beautifully full broccoli flavour.  In addition, Purple Magic did produce a few side shoots later in the season with the final harvest being in October.

Specs:  90 days from transplant to harvest; 30” tall.

Now let’s move on to my favourite ornamentals.

Snapdragon 'Doubleshot Orange Bicolor' - AAS 2023 (National) & Snapdragon 'Doubleshot Yellow Red Heart' - AAS 2025 (National)

I’ve grown the Doubleshot series of snapdragons for a couple of years now and absolutely love them. The beautiful, open-faced blooms are so unusual for a snapdragon.

Doubleshot Yellow Red Heart

Last year I grew the 2023 AAS winner ‘Doubleshot Orange Bicolor’ & this year I added the brand new 2025 winner ‘Doubleshot Yellow Red Heart’ to the grow list.

There's a good amount of colour variation in the Doubleshot Orange Bicolor, ranging from orange to orange-red, while the Yellow Red Heart is exactly as it sounds - yellow with a red-tinged centre.

The stems on these medium sized varieties are sturdy so they don’t flop & get unruly like the taller varieties.  While we generally don’t have super strong winds around here, I’ve read that the Doubleshot series has even held up to hurricane force winds, which is quite the feat.

Doubleshot Orange Bicolor

Another boon is their heat tolerance, blooming for the entire season without the usual mid-summer slow down.  In my garden, when temps hit the 30's (86+ Fahrenheit), they simply shrugged it off.

Specs:  18-20” tall & space 12” apart; full sun to part shade.

Coleus 'Premium Sun Coral Candy' - AAS 2023 (National)

I have been growing Sun Coral Candy for 3 years now and it’s still at the top of my list of favourite coleus varieties.  First, there's the gorgeous colour and unusual narrow leaves. Then there's the structure...it forms a beautiful cascading mound.

And while we grow most annuals for their blooms, when it comes to coleus, the fewer blooms the better.  Sun Coral Candy gets high marks on this front as well – I typically pinch off no more than 3 or 4 blooms the entire season which is pretty darn impressive!

Specs:  10-16” tall, space 10” apart; full to part shade, but tolerates full sun in northern latitudes with only a bit of colour fading.

Marigold 'Siam Gold' - AAS 2024 (National)

I’ve grown a lot of marigolds over the years but they have been predominantly the French & Signet types.  Tucked away in my stash, I had a packet of seeds for an African marigold called Garuda Deep Gold, an AAS winner from 2019.  Last year, I decided to finally crack open the packet & try them because…..why not?  

I didn’t think I would be taken by this ball-type marigold (which is likely why they sat in my stash for so long) but, as is so often the case when I see a plant IRL vs simply a pic, I ended up absolutely smitten.

While Garuda Deep Gold is a tall, cutting flower type (growing to about 3’ tall), this year I tried the much more compact Siam Gold, a recent 2024 winner.  This one topped out at only around 20” tall although the flowers were pretty much the same size as the taller variety.  The stems were exceptionally sturdy, holding up the huge blooms without issue, even in windy weather.  I did zero staking and there were no floppers in the bunch.

The blooms on both varieties were extremely densely packed & they had staying power - each flower lasted for weeks before it started to slowly fade. 

Siam Gold - 18-20” tall, space 16” apart; full sun

Last, but definitely not least, let’s turn to my two hands-down favourites.  I was so taken by both of them that picking one over the other ended up being much too difficult.

Begonia 'Viking Explorer Rose on Green' - AAS 2022 (Gold Medal*)

Begonias can be a bit tricky to grow from seed and I did try growing this one last year but didn’t have much luck.  Not one to give up after the first try, I gave it another go and….whoa!!  These were incredible!

Begonia seedlings potted up on May 5

I started this 2022 Gold Metal* winner extra early, in February, and after a very slow start (which is par for the course when it comes to growing begonias from seed), I had some good-sized plants by the end of May to place in pots on my shady front porch steps.  These guys grew, and grew, and grew – they were phenomenal.

What really impressed me, even more than the beautiful red blooms, was the glossy foliage.  It was surreal – in fact, it was so shiny that my daughter quite seriously asked if they were real.  Why yes, yes they are!

July 9th

This is a very floriferous trailing begonia and the stems draped beautifully over the edges of the pots as the summer progressed.  The plants didn’t balk at the hot, often dry conditions either.  Despite being in smallish (8-12”) terra cotta pots & watering them only once or twice per week, they didn’t droop at all even when temps were sky high without a drop of rain. 

Specs:  16” tall & 3 plants will fit comfortably in a 14-16” pot; part sun to full shade.

Petunia ‘Shake Raspberry’ - AAS 2025 (National)

Tied for first place this year with the Viking Explorer Begonias was the ‘Shake Raspberry’ Petunia.  Full disclosure, I’m not generally a huge petunia fan – the fact that these were a favourite this year gives you an inkling as to how fabulous they were.

This 2025 AAS winner (whose blooms resemble a blended raspberry milkshake, hence the name) is naturally compact, so I decided to plant them in a window box – a harsh environment for a plant, but perfect for really testing out how tough they are.

I packed 5 seedlings into the window box in late May and they just got better and better as the season progressed.  Shake Raspberry lasted all season long and didn’t melt in the summer heat. They also recovered quickly from a couple of dry spells where I forgot to water – a true testament to how resilient they are, despite their delicate appearance.

Still going strong on September 2nd

And since these guys are grown from seed (as are all the plants I’ve talked about in this post), I can have a couple dozen of them for the same price as a one-quart pot at the garden centre – one of the many reasons I love growing from seed!

Specs:  5-8” tall, space 10-12” apart; full sun to part shade.

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And that’s the roundup of my favourite AAS winners from the 2025 growing season.   If you’ve grown a new plant or variety this year that you ended up loving, do let me know in the comments.

Happy Gardening!

*Gold Medal Winner – This rare award, which has only been given to a few varieties in AAS history, is awarded when a variety is truly exceptional, significantly superior to existing varieties, and has a major breakthrough in performance or breeding:  AAS Gold Medal Winners.