From passé to nouveau

We are plant lovers, growers, gardeners and a host of other things. We are not always the ones who need convincing when it comes to buying plants. We are usually challenged most by trying to convince others, our customers. The exception would be when choosing plants for a season, we require romancing -- and we love it when we see something truly new, or at least new to us. We can get the same-old-same-old anywhere.

When seeing a great new plant for the first time my reaction is “…I gotta have that!” Next reaction is “...Oh… I can sell a ton of that!” Unique plants are interesting and easy for us to get excited about and sometimes even have a better chance to market themselves when well grown, properly labeled and appropriately displayed. So the desperate search for something new will always be there and is what really drives the best part of our business.

Plant breeders are great at improving the quality and attributes of many plant varieties. As growers, we can all appreciate their efforts. Many new and exciting plants have been introduced in flood-like proportions, it seems, over the last decade. It seems like everywhere you turn there is a new color of pansy, petunia, verbena or a strikingly brilliant variegated specimen plant that makes us turn our heads and look. Perennials and woody plants have also taken on a new look, with longer blooming periods and prolonged enjoyment with cleaner foliage.

Growers, your retail customers likely already know that showcasing new plants in a display with coordinating containers and a host of companion plants seems to be one of the best ways to market them. But talk to them about planning a display garden with the plants actually installed and growing, which truly show their worth. The end consumer can then see the retailer knows the plant and how to use it. Many times my customers will see the display, then actually go search for that plant. So be sure to have a steady supply nearby.
 

Better marketing, displays

I love caladiums. I mean, I really love caladiums. My favorite is ‘Red Flash.’ It’s bloody red like fresh-cut meat (and I’m vegetarian) and takes sun better than most, but I still search for new varieties because of the success rate with the group. But there are a lot of new ones that deserve your time, such as strap-leaf and Thai Caladiums that are mostly dwarf or semi dwarf, as well as the new Painted Frog series. My favorite new variety is ‘Poison Dart Frog’ because even though I’m quite familiar with the varieties available, I have seriously never seen a plant like it and even my customers recognized its uniqueness. It sold itself.

Gomphrena has always been a garden favorite and a retail nightmare. I love its performance on hot summer days, but try to grow it in a four or six-inch pot and you’ll probably be giving half of them to your employees. And then comes along a plant called ‘Pink Zazzle’ from Proven Winners. The first time I saw it I could not distinguish the species, genera – nothing. It was short, bushy and had thick leaves. It looked more like a short Stokesia, but wasn’t. It simply couldn’t have been a Gomphrena, but it was. You may have to be particular about growing it, but I told myself, ‘I have to have it!’ And it sells. We display ours with other drought-tolerant plants and xeric companions like sedums and smaller ornamental grasses. Growers, you can market them similarly to your retail and landscape contractor customers.

Anyone familiar with the Carex family of sedges has already found out how durable and beautiful this group of grass-like plants can be. They are great for borders and spilling out of containers. The new variety ‘Everillo’ from Pat Fitzgerald is a truly different introduction. It’s a brilliant golden yellow mutation of C. oshimensis ‘Evergold’ that arches and weeps. Never have I seen a more brilliant chartreuse plant than the one lighting up my garden in a tall blue pot. Surrounding the pot are coordinating colors of geraniums and giant elephant ears. Including the complimentary colors and plants alongside ‘Evergold’ really draws attention.

One of my favorite perennials is Aralia ‘Sun King.’ The herbaceous mound of continuous golden foliage never quits performing even in the hottest sultry humid climates. Vigorous emerging shoots in the spring are followed by an ever-emerging succession or succulent compound leaves throughout the summer. Late summer it is topped with a seemingly delicate umbel of white flowers. Its extreme hardiness (USDA Hardiness Zone 5) makes it a beautiful addition to gardens all over the country. Mine has lived in a beautiful blue pot for more than four years.

Although we are always on the lookout for new plants, some varieties that have been around for a while are still very market worthy and may actually be new to our customers. Sometimes it simply takes a new marketing or display strategy to make a more familiar plant seem suddenly exotic. New uses in exceptionally designed combinations -- whether it’s in containers, professionally arranged on a bench or utilizing a large assorted display -- these are tools to reinvent crops to light the fire of excitement in our customers and turn that into money.

Rita Randolph is a garden writer, lecturer and photographer in Jackson, Tenn. You can contact her at randolphs@charter.net and find her on Facebook.