Read on for the results!
‘Top picks’ at this year’s Summer Showcase leaned heavily towards new varieties, suggesting the market continues to hunger for innovative new plant products as Growers and Retailers look to stay one step ahead of the trend.
The recently developed experimental trials area, which presents potential new varieties for baskets and containers also created enormous interest for a record number of visitors this year. A number of varieties voted for in this area look to be making their way into our 2015 Plant and Seed Catalogues, if not sooner.
Here are three of this year’s shining stars voted for by our visitors:
NEW Petunia Cascadia™ Rim Magenta
Petunia x hybrida
This striking new addition will accompany the already popular Cascadia™ Rim Violet.
Rim Magenta proved itself an outstanding variety in our trials and certainly put on a great show, as expected, for visitors this summer.
The large novelty flowers with their distinct creamy white margins provide incredible flower power in containers and baskets.
This variety has a vigorous mounding and trailing habit with strong natural basal branching. So plants look as fresh and exciting in their small pots at retail as they do as a finished display in the garden.
Trade: Available as a Ball 84 plug, weeks 6 – 20. A large 10cm (4”) Ball label is available to make your plants stand out on the retail bench.
NEW Dianthus F1 Sweet Black Cherry
Dianthus barbatus
This elegant plant has warm velvety deep red flowers with black undertones, topped with a delightful fragrance.
Sweet is an easy-to-grow, high quality Dianthus for professional cut flower programmes, home-cut use, patio gardening and landscape planting schemes.
Sweet is also a first year flowering variety, so can be sown and flowered in as little as 15 weeks from sowing without the need for vernalisation.
The large, very fragrant, long-lasting blooms are held above deep green foliage on straight, strong stems which do not need staking. What more can you ask from a flower?
Sweet is available in a range of seven colours of which Coral, Scarlet and White already hold RHS Awards of Garden Merit. Garden height is approximately 45cm. Plants grown under cover for cut flower use will reach 90cm.
Trade: The full range of Sweet colours are available as seed.
Sweet Mixed and Sweet Black Cherry are both available as a Ball 104,
weeks 10 – 20. A large 10cm (4”) Ball label is available to make your
plants stand out on the retail bench.
NEW Begonia Whopper Mixed
Begonia x semperflorens
What is the Blue Flag survey?
The ‘Blue Flag’ survey is a measurable study that identifies sales opportunities right through the supply chain and enables Ball Colegrave customers to determine what varieties are “favourites” as visitors place a blue flag beside their favourite plant. Over 1,400 blue flags were placed this year during trade and public days.
The Ball Colegrave Open Days this year were a great success with an increase again in visitors this year. More than 1,500 Nurserymen, Parks Departments and Retailers visited during July and August, to cement their production and promotional plans for the forthcoming year.
Over 50,000 plants were bedded out over in the newly refurbished grounds to demonstrate a diverse range of annual and perennial varieties. Bedding plants were shown in new dimensions, with inspiring vertical bedding displays using the award winning VertiGarden™ planting system and architectural basket structures.
Customers were also afforded the opportunity to preview many of the 300 new varieties for the 2014 season and development work on future introductions
To view the results of this year's Blue Flag's, please click here
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