The Greener View: Green Thumb Awards

Jeff Rugg on Feb 18, 2026

Green Thumb Awards

The Green Thumb awards are sponsored by the National Garden Bureau, a nonprofit organization that exists to educate and inspire home gardeners. The winning products were selected based on their uniqueness, technological innovation, ability to solve a gardening problem or provide a gardening opportunity, and potential appeal to gardeners.

Winners of the 2026 Green Thumb Awards were chosen by two groups: There's a people's choice group of awards voted on by the public, and a professional choice group of awards voted on by horticulture experts at the National Garden Bureau. I am a member of the NGB, and I voted with the public on just about every category. A few of these winners also won All-America Selections honors that I wrote about earlier this year.

In the annuals category, the public chose Sunflower Sunfinity Yellow-Red Bicolor. It has beautiful 4-inch flowers on 3-foot-tall plants that are perfect for pots or the garden. It has continuous flowers for three months. Everyone loves sunflowers, except the professionals who chose Dipladenia Sun Parasol FiredUp Coral. It is a very pretty vine that stands up like a shrub, and I would love one on my patio, but the public got this one right.

The public chose Fescue Glow Sticks as their perennial. It is a nice ornamental grass that survives heat and drought, but I prefer big, showy flowers in my yard. The pros picked Cocosmia Dark Fire, a dark red late-season flower that attracts hummingbirds and is deer- and rabbit-resistant. I have to side with the hummingbird-attracting flower on this one.

For edible plants, the public chose the Tomato BadaBing! F1 (the exclamation point is part of the name). It is about as disease-resistant of a tomato as there can be. The professionals picked Basil Treviso for its slow flowering and for keeping its flavor longer in the season. For me, cherry tomatoes are way better than any basil.

For a houseplant, the public choose Pothos Yellow Sunrise, which is a very common houseplant in a new color, and as the plant matures, some of the leaves will develop holes and splits like the very popular Monstera. The pros are pros because they grow plants that the general public doesn't, so they picked Cape Primrose Lady Slippers Double Blue Vein. I love flowers, so I like the Primrose. If you can grow an African violet, then you can grow the Primrose.

The garden product category has two very different products. The public picked Sunshine(r) Black Bear(r) Indoor & Outdoor Potting Mix. This makes sense because every garden needs potting soil. This particular mix includes wood biochar, which is a type of charcoal. It helps adsorb nutrients, making them available to plants and microbes. It holds water, and it has reduced CO2 emissions in its production. This mix also doesn't have perlite, which means I don't have to put up with all those white beads on top of the soil in my pots.

The pros picked a tabletop self-contained aquarium/terrarium. It looks like a fun product that I should buy, but it can't beat a new type of potting soil.

You can't go wrong choosing a hydrangea in the shrub category. Last year, the public liked the Flowerfull Smooth Hydrangea, but this year they picked an azalea that can rebloom until fall. The Azalea Encore Autumn Kiss(r) has white and pink flowers on a 3-foot-tall shrub.

Of course, the pros picked a hydrangea. Hydrangea Centennial Ruby(tm) does have ruby red flowers. It grows 3 feet tall in hardiness zones 4-9.

To find out more about these winners, go to the National Garden Bureau website at ngb.org and click on the New Plants tab.

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Email questions to Jeff Rugg at info@greenerview.com. 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.