While American athletes are headed for the winner’s podium at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics, a flowering perennial, a vegetable and a fruit made the podium as 2014 Mississippi Medallion winners.

These are going to be some outstanding plants for our Mississippi gardens.

Who can resist plants that have 2- to 4-inch flowers with bright purple petals and dark center cones? Nobody can, which is why gardeners love coneflowers in the summer. Typically, coneflowers are large, back-row plants in perennial beds or borders. But plant breeders are developing smaller plants worthy of the front row.

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