In 2025, the new annuals are tops in providing bright and surprising colors. But these plants also bring a list of other benefits. Many of these annuals excel in small spaces and containers. Others can brighten and even visually define your garden space. And they all make a great impact on your garden design.
Here’s a list of some of the most intriguing, colorful, and downright cool annuals that will be coming soon to a nursery or garden center near you.
Jump to:
- 1. Art & Sol™'Thunderbird'
- 2. Totally Tempted®Watermelon Wine™ Cuphea
- 3. Bidens Blazing Flames
- 4. Thai Double Sky Blue Butterfly Pea
- 5. Sun Parasol® Giant Peach Sunrise Mandevilla
- 6. Emerald Isle™ Elephant Ears
- 7. Amaranth ‘Coral Fountain’
- 8. Supertunia Tiara™ Blue Petunia
- 9. Space Age™ Europa™ Rex Begonia
- 10. Angelface® ‘Wedgwood Pink’ Summer Snapdragon
- 11. Calibrachoa ‘Calipetite Blue Splash’
- 12. Sorghum Prairie Pearls™
- 13. Dahlia ‘Black Forest Ruby’
- 14. Zinnia ‘Zydeco Fire’
- 15. Shimmer Celosia
- 16. Lobelia ‘Masterpiece’
- 17. ColorBlaze® Mini Me™ Chartreuse Coleus
- 18. Bacopa Versa™ Appleblossom
- 19. Snapdragon ‘DoubleShot Yellow Red Heart’
- 20. Celosia ‘Flamma Pink’
- 21. Beaugonia Saffran Glow Begonia
- 22. Dampiera ‘Purple Oz™’
- 23. Pericallis ‘Senetti Blue Spoon’
1. Art & Sol™'Thunderbird'
Mangavehybrid
It seems to be the year of the Mangave for all the new varieties appearing on the market. Thunderbird is one of them. This smaller-sized succulent has thick, flat leaves that are almost completely covered with dark red spots for eye-catching appeal. The leaves form an upright, refined rosette. Grow in full sun to bring out the brightest foliage color. More water tolerant than typical succulents but benefits from good drainage. Keep watered to watch it grow faster! Deer and rabbit resistant. 8 to 12 inches tall. Zones 9 to 11.
Available from Wayside Gardens.
2. Totally Tempted®Watermelon Wine™ Cuphea
Cupheaprocumbens
The Totally Tempted™Watermelon Wine™ Cuphea provides continuous bloom of watermelon red flowers with just a touch of purple that pollinators such as hummingbirds will enjoy. But gardeners will enjoy it too. Watermelon Wine loves the heat and does well in high humidity or in arid areas. These raucous blossoms will throw a festival in any flower pot from spring to fall. Grows 16 to 18 inches tall. Zones 9 to 11.
Available from Garden Crossings.
3. Bidens Blazing Flames
Here’s a bright-eyed and bushy-growing bidens for you. This sunny little flower produces large golden blossoms with the ends of the petals dipped in orange. It grows in a nice, tidy mound throughout the whole season.
Bidens will attract butterflies and other pollinators to your yard and grow well in containers and landscapes. It's a low-maintenance plant, so it won't need a lot of fuss besides an occasional deadheading to remove old flowers. It prefers full to part sun and grows 14 feet inches tall and about 12 inches wide.
Available for preorder from Timber Gardens.
4. Thai Double Sky Blue Butterfly Pea
I moved this vining plant up in the article because I can’t get enough of these sky-blue blossoms. This heat-loving variety from Thailand grows up quickly and will vigorously climb up whatever structure you put near it and produce a ton of double blossoms in powder blue. Grows to 15 feet tall. Blue flowers can be dried for a tasty blue tea. Good for butterflies because the vine is a larval host for Long-tailed Skipper and Dorantes Longtail butterflies.
Available from Baker Creek Seeds.
5. Sun Parasol® Giant Peach Sunrise Mandevilla
Mandevilla Sun Parasol features rosy pink blooms with yellow and dark orange centers that open to about 5 inches wide. This mandevilla is a blooming machine that can grow from 6 to 10 feet tall and will clamber over pergolas, gazebos, trellises, your mailbox, you, and anything else that happens to run up against. Hummingbirds and other pollinators will love it, and so will you. Grows best in full to part sun and is deer-tolerant and heat-tolerant.
Zones 10 to 11, so it can overwinter there.
Available from Garden Crossings.
6. Emerald Isle™ Elephant Ears
Alocasia hybrid
This elephant ear plant will add a tropical touch to your garden. Its bright green leaves grow 12 inches wide by 18 inches long, or sometimes even larger in warm climates. The plant itself grows three to four feet tall and enjoys sun but can take a little shade. Emerald Isle elephant ears make an excellent focal point in the landscape with its crazy huge ears.
If you live north of zone 7B, this plant won’t survive the winter outdoors. But if you plant it in a pot that can be brought inside and give it adequate light and humidity, it will serve as a gorgeous house plant. The bulb can also be dug up, cleaned off, and stored in slightly moist peat over winter, then replanted in spring.
Available from Garden Crossings.
7. Amaranth ‘Coral Fountain’
Amaranthus caudatus
Coral Fountain Amaranthus is a commanding presence in the garden, towering over the other plants and dripping with long, coral tassels of tiny blossoms. Can be used as a mass planting, a specimen, and even in cut flower arrangements. The pendulous flowers in coral and peach colors are a real eye-catcher. Even better, after the flowers die off, Coral Fountain bears golden grains that can be harvested and eaten in quinoa or other dishes. Young leaves are also edible and can be cooked like spinach. You can have your annuals and eat them too!
Available from Johnny’s Selected Seeds.
8. Supertunia Tiara™ Blue Petunia
Supertunia Tiara petunias offer vigorous growth and make excellent landscape plants that work best in the front of your landscape or garden bed. Their medium to large flowers are deep dark purple with a little lighter purple eye in the middle. Naturally, the flowers are the big selling point here, offering lots of color and beauty. These petunias also are good for attracting pollinators including hummingbirds, honey bees, and butterflies.
Available for preorder from Creekside Nursery.
9. Space Age™ Europa™ Rex Begonia
Begoniarex
Eye-catching leaves in light green, purple, and black make this begonia a real show-off in containers. Can be used as an annual outdoors where it's brightly colored leaves will brighten your shade garden for the whole season. Space Age Europa can also be used as a house plant when brought inside, repotted, and kept in a place with adequate humidity and indirect light. Stays manageable at 8 to 12 inches tall and wide.
Available for preorder from Romence Gardens.
10. Angelface® ‘Wedgwood Pink’ Summer Snapdragon
Angelonia hybrid
The Angelface Summer Snapdragon series aren't actually snapdragons but Angelonias. This particular variety bears tons of vibrant pink and white faces in showy spikes. It grows from 18 to 30 inches tall, giving you pink spires of blossoms all season long. Angelface is heat tolerant, long blooming, and a gorgeous annual to add to your flower border, containers, and landscape plantings. Angelface also works well as a long-lasting cut flower. Angelonia is a pretty easy-going annual and they don't require a lot of fuss.
Available from Plant Addicts.
11. Calibrachoa ‘Calipetite Blue Splash’
Calibrachoas are closely related to petunias and are native to the same area in South America. These offer flowers that are smaller than petunias and eagerly cover themselves with these blossoms. This plant is also called a million bells because, well, they look like a million bells.
Blue Splash is a new member of the Calipetite series, which forms a naturally compact mound of color that doesn't require any extra work to maintain. These blossoms have a lovely sky-blue star pattern and busily bloom in a neat little mound. They're good for baskets, color bowls, mini planters, and any place else you put them.
Available to greenhouses and wholesalers only at this time, but keep an eye out for this one later on at your local garden center.
12. Sorghum Prairie Pearls™
Sorghum bicolor
Here’s a good addition to your cut flower garden that’s also edible for both you and the birds in the form of ornamental sorghum. Prairie Pearls stand at 4 feet tall, and its seed heads add a pop of coral, rose, white, and bronze to your garden. Drought tolerant, prolific. Leave the seed heads to stand through the winter for the birds to enjoy.
Available from Territorial Seed Company.
13. Dahlia ‘Black Forest Ruby’
A 2025 AAS Ornamental Winner and a Fleuroselect Gold Medal Winner.
Here's a brand new dahlia that can be grown from seed. Black Forest Ruby features dramatic dark foliage that would work well in a goth garden. Its double flowers, however, pop out in intense shades of scarlet and wine that make a bold contrast against this dark foliage. It's an upright and compact showstopper that will work well in containers and gardens.
Black Forest Ruby dahlia isn’t available yet, but give the greenhouses and wholesalers a few minutes to grow their stock and it should be making a grand entrance soon at your local garden center.
14. Zinnia ‘Zydeco Fire’
A 2025 AAS Ornamental Winner.
Zydeco Fire Zinnia is a bushier and more compact zinnia selection. This bright and merry orange zinnia produces large blooms that make brilliant flowers for bouquets and a big statement in your garden bed. You can also use them as a garnish on your salad – the pedals and the whole flower head are edible!
Zydeco Fire blooms profusely all through the season. They're still the classic low-maintenance plant that your grandma and grandpa used to grow in their gardens back in the day. Except this one's pretty flashy and more disease-resistant.
Available from Park Seed.
15. Shimmer Celosia
The breeders at Johnny’s have been working on this variety since 2016, when they made their first selections from Pampas Plume Mix. And now here it is, looking straight-up incredible.
Shimmer celosia offers shimmery plumes in all kinds of soft colors: pink, peach, gold, and lime mixed together like something out of a Van Gogh painting. The color palette of this plant in your landscape is going to make your garden club fight over who’s going to sit next to you at their meetings. Plants grow 3 to 4 feet tall.
Available from Johnny’s Selected Seeds.
16. Lobelia ‘Masterpiece’
Lobelia erinis
A FleuroSelect Gold Medal winner.
Lobelias generally can’t take the heat and will wilt if they get too hot. Not Masterpiece. Here is an actual heat-tolerant lobelia that gives you large plants with incredibly bright blue flowers with a little white eye in the center.
Masterpiece is early flowering, well-branched, grows in a neat mounding habit, and keeps blooming even when the heat is on. This robust lobelia performs very well in containers, display gardens, and pots. This is the first lobelia F1 hybrid available from seed, so it’s pocketbook-friendly, too.
Available from Park Seed.
17. ColorBlaze® Mini Me™ Chartreuse Coleus
Coleusscutellarioides
Coleus are good all-purpose annuals in general. They can be grown in sun or shade, they’re vigorous, and because they’re members of the mint family, they’re pretty tough. These annuals are available in all colors, shapes, and sizes. The Mini Me chartreuse coleus is no exception.
Like other coleus in this series, it's good in heat, and it's always colorful because we're not relying on flowers here but leaves foliage that brings a bright blast of color in a small package, growing only 10 to 18 inches tall. This coleus is even deer-resistant. And it can be grown as a houseplant. Zones 10a to 11b.
Available for preorder at Creekside Nursery.
18. Bacopa Versa™ Appleblossom
Sutera cordata
Here is an adorable little bacopa with a sweet apple blossom face that is perfect for hanging baskets and containers, where this little flowers can spill over the sides and charm even the hardest of hearts. It blooms all through the growing season, and its vines do not tangle up comma which is quite an achievement. This little bacopa will need watered often and fertilized once a month.
I kind of jumped the gun with this one. At this time, plants are available only to greenhouses and wholesalers via Ball Horticultural Company, but keep your eyes open for them at your local garden center.
19. Snapdragon ‘DoubleShot Yellow Red Heart’
Antirrhinum majus
A 2025 AAS Ornamental Winner.
Here’s a snapdragon that takes the snap to the next level. These snapdragons bear stunning, open-faced blossoms that change as they age from bright, warm colors to dusty pastels.
Snapdragons are cool-season flowers, so they’ll be at their best in spring and fall and will give you early blooms while other flowers are still shivering in their buds. This snap also handles summer heat better than some of her sisters. Candy-scented blossoms deliver even more charm to this dandy plant.
Not available in retail yet but give it a little time, it will be soon at your local garden center.
20. Celosia ‘Flamma Pink’
A 2025 AAS Ornamental Winner.
A pretty celosia from the Flamma series. This new pink celosia boasts a long-lasting display of upright pink plumes that make it stand out in the garden or in bouquets. The celosia thrives even when it's hot and humid outside, and delivers striking color and beauty all through the growing season. This variety is not yet available in commerce, though it certainly will be soon.
21. Beaugonia Saffran Glow Begonia
Begonia hybrid
Here's a gorgeous tuberous begonia that features large flowers of pink that turn yellow in the center. It branches very well and creates an upright mounding habit that looks good in small pots or large hanging baskets.
The dark green, almost black leaves make a gorgeous backdrop to these stunning flowers. A very eye-striking begonia that is sure to make an impression. Zones 9 to 11. Not yet available in commerce, but look for it at your local garden centers.
22. Dampiera ‘Purple Oz™’
Dampiera altissima
Dampiera is something of a new species for many of us. This shrubby annual is typically grown in the dry reaches of the Southwest United States and is native to Australia, but now it’s making an appearance in more temperate climates. The deep-purple blossoms are almost vibrant in their intensity and are lit up with a little yellow flame at their center.
Dampiera is also a very xeriscape-friendly shrub, able to keep growing and shining even when drought and heat have brought other hardy plants to their knees. A great plant for pollinators and looks lovely in containers. Zones 8 to 11.
23. Pericallis ‘Senetti Blue Spoon’
For you northern folks, here’s a fun, cool-weather flower that you’ll enjoy. Their petals are in electric shades of purple and look like spoons with white handles. The flowers grow about three inches wide.
These prolific-blooming annuals can bear as many as 200 flowers on one plant! Senetti plants are hardier than most annuals, enduring temperatures that get close to freezing. They’ll also go into dormancy when summer is hottest and resume blooming when cooler weather resumes.
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