6/29/2016
Spring Trials: What’s New for You
Chris Beytes, Ellen C. Wells & Jennifer Zurko
While the Spring Trials question of the day over on the
GrowerTalks side of the magazine is, “So what have you seen?,” the question of the day that you—the retailer—receive every day is, “So what’s new?” That’s what your customers want: something new, exciting, different. Something that will make their porch, patio or yard look even more spectacular than the house across the street. Keeping up with, and looking even better, than the Joneses is hard work!
To help you prepare for the inevitable “What’s new?” question for next year, we’re reviewing some of the best of the best from the 2016 Spring Trials. From cool component plants and edibles to items ideal for IGCs, we’ve picked the plants that will help you draw the crowds and help your customers be successful.
Novel Components
Ipomoea Spot Light series (Ball FloraPlant)—What makes a perfect component plant? One that doesn’t take over the entire container. The Spot Light Ipomoea series from Ball FloraPlant is just that—a well-behaved, plays-well-with-others component that’s compact to boot. Nearly as important, Spot Light’s three varieties (Lime, Black, Red) hold their color even in the toughest heat.
Carex Feather Falls (Pacific Plug & Liner)—The latest trendy color? Brown! And the cascading seed heads of Feather Falls Carex has plenty of brown to offer, topping off its beautiful white and green variegated foliage. This vigorous component grass, hardy up to Zone 5 (or thereabouts), is bringing excitement back to the grass category! Liners will be available fall 2016.
Cyperus Prince Tut (Proven Winners)—In the Graceful Grasses line, Prince Tut is the intermediate height coming in between the 5-ft. tall King Tut and the smaller Baby Tut. This full sun plant has showy, 1-in. wide green flower heads and is a manageable “thriller” for combos on the small side. It’s both heat tolerant and water loving.
Ipomoea Sweet Caroline Bewitched After Midnight, Green With Envy, Sweetheart Jet Black (Proven Winners)—The Sweet Carolines have been improved and upgraded. Bewitched After Midnight replaces Bewitched. Green With Envy adds the important lime green color to the series and Sweetheart Jet Black replaces Sweetheart Purple. All are vigorous full-sun to part-shade lovers and important components for your Proven Winners combos.
Ideal for IGCs
Mini Mint (PanAmerican Seed)—An ideal item for fairy garden “lawns,” terrariums, patio pavers and as a scented windowsill pot.
Tea Plot collection (Athena Brazil)—Promote both herbal and caffeinated tea drinking with the Tea Plot collection, featuring a number of teas, mints and aromatics that can be grown and brewed at home.
Bidens Giant Sun Louis (Westhoff)—A basketful of beauty! It’s a wonderful stand-alone item for spring and fall sales. Imagine the endcaps!
Pelargonium Pinki Pinks (Jaldety)—This is an old-school geranium for baskets and mixed containers. And just look at that color!
Artemesia Quicksilver (Proven Winners)—Consumers are looking for deer-proof plants—and Quicksilver is it. Grown in a grande-sized pot, this landscape item can cover a lot of ground, growing 6- to 10-in. high with a 30-in. spread.
Craspedia Golf Beauty (Danziger)—The neighbors will talk with this in the yard. Only an IGC will be able to visually communicate just how fun Golf Beauty can be in a customer’s containers or garden plantings. Makes a fun cutting garden plant, too.
Lavender LaVela series, Calm Breeze (Selecta)—Selecta’s relatively new perennial line gets two lavenders. The LaVela series of stoechas (Spanish) lavender flowers four weeks earlier than others, has a tight habit and comes in three varieties (Dark Violet, Compact Dark Pink and Compact Dark Violet). Calm Breeze is a dentata (French) type with a “super scratchy” texture. Use it as a scented thriller in a mixed combo.
Enjoyable Edibles
Take 2 Tomato Combinations (Burpee)—Combining one indeterminate tomato with one bush-style tomato solves a problem that many small-space gardeners wrestle with each year. The Take 2s come in three combinations: Lights (BushSteak and Patio Choice Yellow), Camera (Homeslice and Sweetheart of the Patio) and Action (BushSteak and Baby Boomer). All three pairings have been trialed together to ensure success. Best suited for 14-in. and larger patio containers.
Gherking and Martini Cucumbers (PanAmerican Seed)—Cucumbers are hot garden items now, especially the pickling kinds. Gherking is a pickling variety with high resistance to scab and CMV1, and intermediate resistance to powdery and downy mildews. Martini is a slicing variety with white skin and powdery mildew resistance.
Tomatoes (PRUDAC)—The latest veg breeder at Spring Trials is PRUDAC, which stands for Production Research for Urban Decoration and Consumption. From that it’s clear their breeding objectives focus on edibles consumers can harvest and eat at home, and also items that are easy and low cost for growers to mass produce. Small-sized tomatoes and peppers are some of the obvious crops, but they’re also breeding cauliflower, herbs and edible flowers.
Zest Herbs Collection (Hort Couture)—Hort Couture has had its Culinary Couture edibles collection for a number of years now. However, this year, they’re adding 30 new and exclusive varieties to the mix. Their Zest herbs collection has several unique items, including the cascading Avalanche Rosemary, Licorice Towers Fennel and La Crema variegated sage.
Homegrown Seed Collection (Sakata)—Nothing sells more than a trusted name. Sakata has brought on P. Allen Smith’s name and image to market their latest collection of packet seed varieties. The garden guru will be the face of 24 total Sakata vegetable varieties meant for the market producer.
Takara Pepper (Sakata)—Another popular homegrown crop are the multitudes of pepper varieties. Takara is Sakata’s shishito, a type of mildly spicy pepper that’s broiled, tossed with salt and served as snacking food in Japan—and now here at home!
Strawberry Bubble Berry (Pacific Plug & Liner)—Bubble Berry is the pinkish sister of Hula Berry, released two years ago. This one, however, tastes like bubblegum and doesn’t need a companion pollinator plant. This small-fruit, high-yield variety will be rolled out for 2018.
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