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Gretel eggplant

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Lambkin melon

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Honey Bear squash

TOM'S TIP

Keep watering your Christmas tree. You don't want it to dry out before Christmas, or maybe even before New Year's Day.

After we take down our cut tree, we always put it near a landscape garden shrub that needs a bit of protection. The cut tree acts as a wind break. Or you can cut off the branches and lay them on your perennial border to keep the soil frozen.

For the various plant-promotion organizations, it's already 2009. The plants of the year have been selected. My favorite programs put the spotlight on plants that have been on the market for a while and have proven their worth.

Other programs report on plant introductions, which can be less helpful because people can't know how well the plants will actually perform over time.

All-America Selections went with vegetables, selecting three food-producing plants and only one fairly simple flower for its plants of the year. The group, founded in 1932 to help make seed selection easier for consumers, normally picks one vegetable a year. But AAS officials predict that hard economic times will have more people growing vegetables.

Honey Bear squash, one of the three winners, was bred at the University of New Hampshire, about five miles away from the Maine border, in Durham, N.H.

Honey Bear, an acorn squash, is promoted for its sweet flavor. But its growing habit is exceptional. It will continue to ripen its fruits in the cool, damp weather of early fall when many other squash succumb to powdery mildew in places like Maine. It is a bush plant, taking up less room in the garden, and a ripe squash weighs only about a pound, ideal for small families.

Nancy and I have never been big on eggplant, mostly because it has very little flavor, sucking up its taste from what it is cooked with. But "Gretel" intrigues me. First, it is white. And its skin is tender and edible. The flavor is sweet and, with my new passion for grilling, I'm delighted that it is recommended for grilling. In addition, it is supposed to ripen in about 55 days, but the AAS material does say it prefers warm growing conditions, so it might be difficult growing in foggy coastal areas.

Here I was, thinking that on Dec. 21, I was providing a change-of-pace by writing a column that had nothing to do with Christmas, and the Lambkin melon threw me off. Lambkin is called a Christmas melon, because they are supposed to store for such a long time that they can be eaten at Christmas. But still, they produce 2- to 4-pound fruit with sweet, white flesh in about 75 days, all of which impressed the AAS judges.

The non-food AAS selection is Viola Rain Blue and Purple, although viola and pansy petals are edible. This plant was selected because the blooms go from purple to white to purple and blue as they age. The plants require little care and bloom in early spring or fall, when it is cool. For more information, go to www.aaswinners.com.

The Perennial Plant Association's perennial of the year is a cool-season grass that varies in color depending on how much sun it gets. Hakonechloa macra Aureola will be yellow with narrow green stripes near the margins in part-shade locations. In full sun, it could bleach to parchment yellow.

Its prime attribute, though, is its cascading habit, with most of the leaves arching in the same direction like a golden waterfall. It grows 1 to 2 feet tall but can spread much wider. It is reliably hardy to Zone 5, which includes Maine's coastal and river sections.

For more information, go to www.perennialplant.org.

The Cary Award winners for 2009 are the Tupelo tree, Nyssa sylvatica, and three boxwood hybrids developed by the Sheridan Nursery in Canada.

Cary Awards are administered by Tower Hill Botanical Garden and sponsored by several New England garden and nursery groups, selecting underutilized plants that do well in New England.

Tupelo is a native, grows 75 feet high with deep glossy green leaves in summer and a brilliant autumn color of red, orange and occasionally yellow. The plant produces fairly insignificant flowers in the spring, but does produce blue to black berries that are favored by the birds.

Although Tupelos will grow 75 feet high, they grow...