Rounding Out 2026: Proven Winners® ColorChoice® reflects on honors for exceptional shrub breeding

As the 2026 season comes to a close, Spring Meadow Nursery is looking back on a year of industry recognition for Proven Winners® ColorChoice® shrubs, with honors from cut flower growers, garden retailers, and independent rose trials. Among the highlights, the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers (ASCFG) named Wine & Spirits® weigela its 2026 Woody Cut Flower of the Year. Chosen by the group's more than 2,500 members, the Cut Flowers of the Year recognize varieties for their ease of culture, productivity, and marketability.

Bred by Megan Mathey at Spring Meadow Nursery in Grand Haven, Michigan, Wine & Spirits weigela is an update on the classic Wine & Roses® weigela. This vigorous, handsome variety pairs dramatic dark foliage with crisp white flowers that open from lime-green buds in late spring and early summer. The near-black foliage holds its color from spring through fall, adding depth and contrast to arrangements well beyond bloom time.

As one ASCFG grower shared: "I'm a big fan! My plants were finally mature to harvest off this past year and I was really happy with them."

Wine & Spirits weigela reaches 3-5' tall and wide, thrives in full sun, and is hardy in USDA zones 4-8. It is also deer resistant. The variety was previously named the Proven Winners 2024 Flowering Shrub of the Year.

Previous Proven Winners ColorChoice varieties to earn the Woody Cut of the Year include Brandywine™ viburnum (2024), Pinky Winky® panicle hydrangea (2023), Quick Fire® and 'Limelight' panicle hydrangeas, and Coppertina® ninebark.

Wine & Spirits weigela wasn’t the only Proven Winners ColorChoice variety recognized in 2026. At the Oregon Association of Nurseries (OAN) Farwest Show in August, Featherman® Vitex and Candybox® Ugni each earned a Retailers' Choice Award. In rose trials, Reminiscent® Coral and Ringo® Double Pink roses earned Local Artist awards from the American Rose Trials for Sustainability (A.R.T.S.), and Reminiscent® Pink rose received both a regional award and a fragrance award from American Garden Rose Selections (AGRS). Read more about these honors on the Spring Meadow Nursery press page.