California Spring Trials in review

Photos by Kelli Rodda and Patrick Alan Coleman

The West Coast offers a floral feast for the senses every March during California Spring Trials (CAST). Taking in the vegetation the major plant developers and brands are previewing can leave you reeling in a haze of colors, scents and flavors. It’s easy to engage in plant gluttony during CAST, but the point of the spectacle is to discern the trends and pick the best of what’s available for growers.

Over three days, the Greenhouse Management team dove into the floral and foliage fray. We returned with a broad view of trends and top picks from premier brands. Here are the selections you may want to bring into your greenhouse sooner than later, in order of how we encountered them along the California coast. For full coverage, visit greenhousemag.com/page/cast-california-spring-trials.

Syngenta Flowers

Sunfinity Double Yellow is a new vegetative double-flowered sunflower with a deep orange center and yellow outer petals. Syngenta says that Sunfinity can keep up its color all season long (hence the name) and works well in ground and in pots. When the outer leaves are shed, a tight orange pom-pom remains on stem. This selection is also resistant to powdery mildew.

ThinkPlants

One standout from ThinkPlants was Monrovia’s Camouflage Fatsia japonica, featuring beautiful broad leaves with unique variegation that gives the plant its name. But we were left wondering, if you wear camo to blend into plants, what does a plant need camo for?

Danziger

The storied breeder provided a riot of colors and textures from calibrachoa offerings like the LIA Abstract Lemon Cherry, with randomly patterned red and yellow blooms, and Eyeconic Orange, with sweet peach-hued flowers featuring bright yellow centers. New petunia varieties included the deep purple-veined flowers of the Capella Fuchsia Lace and the mysterious RAY Shadow, which fits well with shoulder-season crops for fall and Halloween-inspired combos.

Benary

Tucked among a variety of grasses, our eye was drawn to a display of Limonium sinuatum Hipster Blue. It's part of Benary’s Hipster line and features a vibrant palette of drought tolerant plants that provide color and texture and can be easily cut for arrangements.

Hishtil

Varieties like the new Thymus citriodorus 'Fragrantissimus Orange' thrilled on all levels. Not only did it offer tiny white blooms, but the fragrance offered a deep and unique lingering citrus. The same was true for Hishtil’s unique Ziziphora clinopodioides 'High Mountain Mint', with a compact habit, small arrowhead leaves and a bright, almost spearmint punch of scent. The plant is new to the U.S. and grows in dry mountainous regions in Israel, where it thrives under cold, dry conditions.

Prudac Americas

Prudac’s Tiny Temptations series of cherry tomatoes offer sweet fruits, averaging up to 350 fruits per plant. Colors are red, yellow and orange.

American Takii

The new Dahlia Black Forest Ruby features intensely dark foliage and stems punctuated by intense red semi-double to double flowers. Black Forest Ruby is from seed and offers an upright habit that works well both in containers and in the ground.

Sahin/Takii EU

Ammobium grandiflorum features twisty stems rising high above the foliage and topped with small yellow and white flowers. It’s used in cutting gardens but would make a cool perennial in Zone 8 or higher, tucked in with other tall perennials or in the back of the landscape for structure. Another cut flower, Centaurea moschata Imperialis ‘The Bride', offers a scented white form with new colors in the pipeline: dark purple, light purple, rose and a mix.

Sakata

Sakata’s new Playlist concept pulls its “biggest hits” from a variety of floral lines and combines them into single offerings, all with musical themes. The selection has combo options that are timed to seasons and can be produced and sold from early spring to fall. And many come in vegetative kits with mixed varieties that create colorful pots that grow in harmony. Some standouts include the Cajun Chorus mix (with SunPatiens Compact Purple, SunPatiens Compact Orange and PartyTime Lime coleus) and Electric Lady (with SunPatiens Compact Rose Glow and PartyTime Pink Berry Coleus).

Dümmen Orange

The new Garden Party Icons mixes are inspired by women who’ve made a difference in the world and had an impact on society and even pop culture, such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Oprah and Taylor Swift. The Garden Party mixes include four varieties, and production time is approximately 15 weeks from sticking unrooted cuttings to finish. That timing was based on California growers, so plan accordingly.

PlantHaven International

The new Arabis sturii 'Arctic Fox' features variegated foliage that varies from silvery-green to magenta and produces small white flowers. It’s a Zone 4, shade-loving, drought resistant, evergreen ground cover.

Heading into the food aisle is the The Colocasia Royal Hawaiian 'Hawaiian Luau', a taro with edible tubers that starts as an impressive broad-leaf foliage plant. Its impressive, deep purple leaves, shot through with green veins, can be grown indoors as a houseplant, or as a patio plant. And once the season is done, the foliage is meant to be cut back and the tubers harvested to be used like potatoes.

Pacific Plug & Liner

The Pollyanna Primula series is a double-flowered selection. Flowers sit slightly above the foliage, making it taller than the diminutive Belarina series. Pollyanna debuts with eight colors. Grow Pollyanna in 6-inch or 2½-quart containers. Also new this year is the even larger Pretty Polly series. The large, vibrant flowers are carried by robust stems well above the top of the soil, giving growers and retailers an opportunity to deliver a primula that doesn’t have to sit along a border to be seen and appreciated.

Plant Development Services, Inc.

The Nice & Easy Yucca is great for families and production workers who must get up close and personal. The long, variegated leaves have a stable, creamy-hued outer edge, but more importantly, they lack the super sharp tips and edges that make yucca not so nice or easy.

Suntory Flowers

The Sun Parasol FiredUp Orange is one of a whole new category in the mandevilla brand, featuring an upright habit that breaks the tradition of the trailing habit common in the line. The bright orange flowers and long stems make it a perfect centerpiece for combos and containers.

Green Trade Horticulture

Aglaonema tricolor has an incredibly intricate patterning that looks like the camouflage that camouflage was originally based on.

Selecta one

The new double-flowered MiniFamous Evo Calibrachoa Series (Double Blue, Double Magenta, Double White, Double Red and Double Yellow) is an early-to-flower selection that is grown pot tight and doesn't require pinching or PGRs.

Burpee

The storied seed brand, part of Ball Horticultural, has been busy making innovations with plants that don’t need to be grown from seed by the consumer. The standout is the BrightStar tomato, a juicy beefsteak that looks like an heirloom-style tomato. It has the bumps and lack of symmetry common in heirlooms without all the fussiness and disease susceptibility.

Darwin Perennials

Perfect for Zones 4a-8b, Darwin introduced Lilac Splash garden phlox, Saxifraga Marto Hot Rose and Armeria Dreameria Hypnotic Dreams, the last of which a Darwin representative called a “Dr. Seuss plant,” because it’s reminiscent of the Lorax’s Truffula Trees.

Ball FloraPlant

Solera is a new vegetative interspecific geranium series, a first for the company. Its medium greenhouse habit makes it best suited for 5-inch pots or larger, as well as hanging baskets. Colors in the series are Fuchsia, Lavender, Orange, Red and Watermelon. Unrooted cuttings will now be grown at Ball’s YecaFlora farm in Yecapixtla, Mexico, and trucked to the U.S. border with better access to air freight. This series is also included in new FunFusion Combinations, such as Fuchsia in Fresno.

Ball Seed

Morel Cyclamen varieties, which are available exclusively through Ball Seed, introduced Petit Moulin, a miniature, double-flowering selection that flowers for more than 100 days. Market for both indoor and outdoor use. Grow as a mini in 4- or 5-inch pots. Growing time from seed is 32-34 weeks. Colors include White with Eye, Rose with Eye, Light Rose with Eye and Lilac with Eye.

PanAmerican Seed

Dart is a new series of dianthus that doesn’t require heat for production. It fits in a variety of sizes, on the small side of 4- or 6-inch pots, up to larger 8-inch, 1-gallon or 2-gallon pots. PGRs are not required. In the garden, they grow from 6-12 inches high with a spread of up to 6 inches. Colors include Pink Magician, Purple, Red White Picotee, Scarlet and White.

Green Fuse Botanicals

The Hydrangea Game Changer series, which includes Giant Pink, has flowers that are noticeably larger than the other colors in this lacecap hydrangea series. Plants in the Game Changer series are day-length neutral and require zero chilling. Plants are ready in eight to nine weeks (depending on location and growing conditions) from a cutting.

Hem Genetics

The Petunia Shake series (from seed) offers a compact growing habit and no need for PGRs. This seed petunia features large flowers that fall between a grandiflora and multiflora type. Three colors kick off the series: Blueberry, Strawberry and Raspberry. They’re good for containers and landscape use.

Schoneveld Breeding

Cyclamen Illusia is an F1 persicum species that features unfolded and reversed flowers with contrasting colors. Pink is the first color in the series. Bred for 4-inch containers, this indoor potted plant takes 24-30 weeks to produce from seed to finished plant.

Beekenkamp

Dahlia Labella Grande Coral has sturdy stems best suited for 6- or 8-inch pots. Labella Grande Coral can be finished in 10-13 weeks from an unrooted cutting.

Westhoff

New petunia colors include Double Stuff Rose (double, star-patterned flowers on compact plants), Magenta and Melon Pink in the DiscoBall series, Citrus Hill and Secred Star in the novelty Crazytunia series, as well as an electric red, aptly named Hells The Red.

Rodda is editorial director and Coleman is editor of Greenhouse Management.