Streamlining Verbena   Greenhouse Product News October 2006   By Jim Faust, Kelly Lewis and Renee Keydoszius
Every season growers struggle with rising production costs and dwindling profits. Research from Clemson University shows how improving production efficiency can help enhance greenhouse profitability.
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Hybrid Phlox: Have a Sunny Future   Greenhouse Product News June 2006   By Rick Schoellhorn
New breeding techniques for vegetative hybrid phlox are proving very advantageous for growers and consumers.
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Sensational Salvia   Greenhouse Product News April 2006   By Luis Masvidal and Jack Williams
This relatively under-utilized group of salvia is available in a range of colors and has low water requirements, so why aren’t more of these salvia being produced and sold?
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Bellis perennis Bellissima Series   Greenhouse Product News April 2006   By Paul Pilon
This vigorous series of English daisies forms compact, low-growing rosettes that produce large, double flowers in early spring.
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Making Coleus Better and Brighter   Greenhouse Product News December 2005   By Penny Nguyen, Becky Hamilton and David Clark

Streamlining New Guinea Impatiens   Greenhouse Product News October 2005   By Jim Faust, Kelly Lewis and Renee Keydoszius
In a perfect world, New Guinea impatiens would all flower at the same time, but that doesn’t happen. This Clemson University research will help you determine when your New Guinea impatiens will flower.
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Grower 101: Rooting Hormones   Greenhouse Product News August 2005   By Christopher Cerveny and James Gibson
Rooting hormones can improve the visibility of temperate and tropical annual and perennial species by increasing propagation success.
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FloraStar Elite Performer   Greenhouse Product News August 2005   By Jim Barrett and David Hartley
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Factors Affecting PGR Liner Dips   Greenhouse Product News July 2005   Rebecca Schnelle, Christopher Cerveny and Jim Barrett
Liner dips are a useful new technique that make the production of mixed containers and vigorous crops in baskets and other containers much easier and that allow for more efficient use of PGR chemicals.
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A Friendly Marketer   Greenhouse Product News June 2005   By Carrie Burns
For the first annual GPN/John Henry Company Creative Marketing Award, we wanted to really make a statement — one that says “Now this is a successful marketing program.” And that is why I am so excited to announce that Riverview Flower Farm, Riverview, Fla., is the 2005 winner for its Florida Friendly Plants program. You will see in the next few pages just why this program is such a winner.
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Best in Show   Greenhouse Product News June 2005   By Carrie Burns, Catherine Evans and Bridget White
The following 22 items represent some of the best new vegetative introductions this year. Look for these varieties to be widely marketed for the 2006 growing year and for our seed coverage in next month’s issue.
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Breeding Breakthroughs   Greenhouse Product News June 2005   By Carrie Burns, Catherine Evans and Bridget White
As we said, there were many varieties that were amazing; these five aren’t by any means the only varieties worth mentioning; you can find the other great Pack Trials introductions on page 38.
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Making the Cut   Greenhouse Product News June 2005   By John Dole, Frankie Fanelli, William Fonteno, Beth Harden and Sylvia Blankenship

Trialing the Varieties   Greenhouse Product News June 2005   Ryan Hall
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Pack Trial Lessons   Greenhouse Product News June 2005   By Rick Schoellhorn
2005 Pack Trials held many lessons, including the standard crop introductions, marketing ideas and more.
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Winner’s Circle   Greenhouse Product News May 2005   By Mackenzie Gaffney
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SubLIME Dracaena   Greenhouse Product News April 2005   By Rick Schoellhorn, University of Florida
Getting our consumers to do a double take in shady locations has always been a big problem because most of our product is designed to succeed in the blazing sun.

A State of Phlox   Greenhouse Product News January 2005   By Rick Schoellhorn, University of Florida
All phlox groups are native to the North American continent, so they can offer additional sales if marketed as native plants.
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Hardy Hibiscus   Greenhouse Product News October 2004   By Rick Schoellhorn, University of Florida
Connoisseurs of the hibiscus will know about some of the great species forms floating around in the industry, and for those of you who have no idea what I am talking about we’ll do a little history and get you caught up…
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Talk of the Summer Trials   Greenhouse Product News September 2004   By Rick Schoellhorn and Marc Frank, University of Florida
In common with other year’s results we saw a few common markers that separate performance in the Sunbelt from performance in more Northern regions of the state.
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Elite Performer: A greenhouse production trial for bacopa, petunia, verbena and scaevola.   Greenhouse Product News July 2004   By Jim Barrett and Erika Berghauer
The Elite Performers award level is reserved for only those varieties that are the easiest to grow, have excellent marketability and perform well in different situations and container sizes.
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Controlling 4-inch Ivies   Greenhouse Product News July 2004   By Jim Barrett
Multiple PGR regimes can produce compact, salable 4-inch ivy geraniums.
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Taming the Beasts!   Greenhouse Product News July 2004   By Roger C. Styer
Getting vegetative annuals from cutting to retail can seem like a battle for supremacy — but not with the right PGR techniques.
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Cost of Producing Pansies   Greenhouse Product News July 2004   By Brian Whipker
This case study shows how understanding your production costs will help with all of your business decisions.
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WINNER'S CIRCLE   Greenhouse Product News May 2004   By Neda Simeonova
GPN’s annual Winner’s Circle introduces the best of the best chosen by AAS, AARS, Fleuroselect and FloraStar.
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Report from the Southern Trials, Part II   Greenhouse Product News October 2003   Rick Schoellhorn and Erika Berghauer
Last month, we covered the results of most of our focus crops for the University of Florida spring/summer 2003 trials. However, there were so many great new plants as single entries in the trials that I really felt we needed to cover them in a separate issue where there would be enough space to focus on both field performance and a little bit of culture information.
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Ready, Set, Go with Winter Osteospermum Production   Greenhouse Product News September 2003   Bob Shabot
The success of an osteospermum pot program or schedule depends on a number of key visual indicators that are easily measured and observed during various crop stages. Our ongoing research at the University of Connecticut indicates that by meeting these targets, a great osteospermum crop can be produced almost by the numbers.
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Lighting Effects on Black-eyed Susan   Greenhouse Product News September 2003   Meriam Karlsson and Jeff Werner
Black-eyed Susan responds strongly to the type or quality of incoming light. Natural light with a balanced wavelength distribution supports growth and development optimally in most plants. The light of high-pressure sodium is concentrated to the yellow and orange wavelengths and limited in blue (short) and far-red (long) wavelengths. During periods of restricted natural light, small amounts of light from regular incandescent bulbs improve the high-pressure sodium spectrum with additional long wavelengths. We conducted this research to determine how much incandescent light was needed and what the benefit of that light actually was.
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Report from the Southern Trials Part I   Greenhouse Product News September 2003   Rick Schoellhorn and Erica Berghauer, University of Florida
With over 340 entries and 19 basic categories of plants in the 2003 spring/summer trials at the University of Florida, there is a lot to cover. To get the full story with data, check the trials Web site, (http://hort.ifas.ufl.edu/floriculture/springtrials2003), so you can compare what is said here with pictures taken every two weeks. So here are the plants in the groups we classified on the Web site to facilitate crossover. Also, due to the number of cultivars presented here, please use the Web site to locate sources for this material.
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Travels on Highway 101 Part II   Greenhouse Product News July 2003   Rick Schoellhorn, University of Florida
This second article on new crops displayed at Pack Trials 2003 will contain a bit less on production information and more on crops that struck me as interesting and worthy to note, especially for growers looking to develop a niche for the unusual.

Better Calibrachoas with Growth Control   Greenhouse Product News July 2003   Jim Barrett
The need to produce more attractive plants led us to doing growth regulator work for our May field days. For this article, I have chosen the strategy of showing more pictures of the plants and letting them speak for themselves, as in "a picture is worth a thousand words."
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Trialing Diascia and Nemesia   Greenhouse Product News July 2003   Rick Schoellhorn
The following report of diascia and nemesia trials conducted at the University of Florida trial gardens in Gainesville, Fla., was conducted in the winter of 2002. Gainesville is in USDA Zone 8b and is part of an ongoing research program to evaluate new crops for their potential as winter flowering crops. While Southern and Sunbelt producers can use this information to boost winter sales and extend fall-season sales, Northern growers might wonder how this type of trailing affects their use of product, and the answer is two-fold.

Pick of the Pack Trials, Part II   Greenhouse Product News July 2003   Carrie Burns, Catherine Evans and Bridget White
The seed market's advancements, showcased in this year's Pack Trials, have brought unique traits and improvements to seed varieties that are frequently found in vegetative varieties. Now we are graced with unique crops such as seed hibiscus and double aquilegia. So, without delay, check out these and other innovative seed varieties we saw as we traveled the coast. Enjoy!
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FloraStar Elite Awards: A Greenhouse Performance Trial   Greenhouse Product News July 2003   Jim Barrett, Erika Berghauer and Phillip Hamilton
FloraStar, in cooperation with the University of Florida, has selected the winners of the first FloraStar Elite Performer trials that are designed to evaluate how well a variety performs for the grower. This year's trial included calibrachoa and double impatiens.
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Editors' Pick of the Pack Trials, part I   Greenhouse Product News June 2003   Carrie Burns, Catherine Evans and Bridget White
If you were there, you might have missed something or maybe you just need a refresher, and if you weren't able to attend Pack Trials this year, here's your chance.

Travels on Highway 101, Part I   Greenhouse Product News June 2003   Rick Schoellhorn
Pack trials this year seemed a lot like our national outlook: cautious and playing to its strengths. There was a lot of wonderful material, but it was toned down a bit from last year. Sorting out differences between plants became even more important this year, as I was touring with the editors from GPN, some of which were getting their first exposure to the diversity of our industry.
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Top Ten Problems of Vegetative Annuals   Greenhouse Product News June 2003   Colleen Warfield, Brian Whipker, Christine Casey, Raymond Cloyd, James Gibson and Brian Krug
Below are the top ten problems of vegetative annuals we have observed during extension visits to growers and through plant samples submitted to the North Carolina State University Plant Disease and Insect Clinic. Recognizing potential problems and how to prevent or manage them will, hopefully, keep these problems off your top ten list.

Best-of-Class Marigolds   Greenhouse Product News May 2003   Rick Kelly, Rick Schoellhorn, Zhanao Deng and Brent Harbaugh
Instead of numerous cultivars, the University of Florida trials focus on only one and its different varieties. Last year, marigolds were the university?s trial target.

Winner's Circle   Greenhouse Product News May 2003   Sarah Pahnke
The award-winning varieties selected by All-America Selections (AAS), All-America Rose Selections (AARS), Fleuroselect and FloraStar embody all the desirable characteristics growers want. The winners of the 2003-2004 growing season have completed extensive tests, usually over a two-year period and in multiple locations, where judges use a standardized grading system to evaluate the varieties' traits, including disease-resistance, hardiness, color and novelty. This process ensures that only the most extraordinary plants receive awards.

New Cut Flower Introductions   Greenhouse Product News April 2003   John Dole
Cut flower growers are always searching for the latest in new cuts to jazz up their product line. To provide that information, the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers (ASCFG) conducts an annual National Seed and Perennial Trial Program. We had a number of great selections in the trials this year. The top performers in the trials are entered in the ASCFG Cut Flower of the Year contest.
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Bromeliads: long-lasting tropical color   Greenhouse Product News February 2003   Rick Schoellhorn
The boom in orchids as flowering potted plants (now listed as the number-two flowering potted plant, just behind poinsettias) and the growing diversity of bromeliad hybrids on the market make it much easier to find reliable sources for some really exotic color. I will look more at orchids sometime in the near future, but for this month I wanted to talk about bromeliads and some of the spectacular, long-lasting hybrids coming on the market.

Nemesia and Diascia   Greenhouse Product News January 2003   Rick Schoellhorn
Both nemesia and diascia are in the same family as snapdragons. So cool temperatures are fine for production, photoperiod doesn't appear to be an issue, and both groups of plants appear to be fairly frost-tolerant once hardened off. So here are a couple of easy-to-grow crops you may want to fit into your production and early spring retail orders to give spring sales a boost. Like calibrachoa, these crops are changing quickly and have a diverse genetic background, so consider this a primer on succeeding with two strong spring crops.
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Producing Ravishing Ranunculus   Greenhouse Product News January 2003   Meriam Karlsson
In the 1960s and 1970s, efforts were intensified to develop seed-propagated ranunculus. Plants with dwarf growth habits were also singled out during the breeding process to identify suitable seed-propagated selections for bedding and potted plant markets. In 1983, Sakata Seed America, Morgan Hill, Calif., introduced the seed-propagated F1 hybrid series Bloomingdale.
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The Sixth Annual State of the Industry Report   Greenhouse Product News December 2002   Catherine Evans
Year after year, the Annual GPN/Summit Plastics State of the Industry Report provides the most comprehensive data available about the past year in floriculture. And now ladies and gentlemen, The Sixth Annual State of the Industry Report.
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Control of Pansy Downy Mildew 2002   Greenhouse Product News December 2002   Ann Chase
During the fall-winter of 2002, we experienced a severe outbreak of pansy downy mildew across the United States. It was identified by Dr. G.W. Simone as Peronospora violae, the most common downy mildew pathogen on pansies. The opportunity to concentrate on this downy mildew has not been frequent in our facility so we spent much of our efforts on this disease. Several new fungicides were available for evaluation, and they were each tested over the course of the season. We also expanded the work to include eradication as well as prevention with currently available and experimental fungicides.
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Employing Communication in Employment   Greenhouse Product News November 2002   Brandi D. McNally
Two years ago, Tagawa Greenhouses in Brighton, Colo. saw that their production efficiency and product uniformity could be improved through some changes in employee training. By developing a system that integrated training, research and development, and implementation management, they've seen increasing productivity since the beginning of the program. Hiring professional teachers, developing standardized procedures and spending time with individual employees to gain an understanding of their communication levels are just a few of the things they've done to make their training program successful.
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Recycling the Rex Begonia   Greenhouse Product News November 2002   Rick Schoellhorn
Rex begonias are not new by any stretch; however, they are being re-marketed and with some really nice results. In the past, the market for these plants was primarily as houseplants, but now we are thinking bigger than that and rex begonias are surfacing as an annual shade groundcover or as the foliage accent in shade mixed containers. There are also some new cultivars with better tolerance of high heat and humidity, and conversely, tolerance of low humidity. So there's lots of potential for marketing these plants as high-dollar annuals in the gardening season and carrying them over into the winter houseplant market as well for novelty sales and arrangements with seasonal plants.
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University of Florida Field Trials   Greenhouse Product News October 2002   Rick Schoellhorn
The spring field trials at the University of Florida this year contained 180 cultivars of vegetative annuals, both those more common to southern production and also several focus areas. The goal of these trials is to promote plants that are tolerant of extreme high heat and humidity, conditions common across the southeast sunbelt from Florida to West Texas. Obviously, the season here begins very early in the year and, for some plants, ends a lot earlier as well. The results of these trials can be used to help growers refine their late-season selections where heat and humidity have the biggest impact on crop quality.
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Beyond Color Bowls: Container Gardens - Big Time   Greenhouse Product News October 2002   Terri W. Starman and Kristen L. Eixmann
Container garden production is being taken to the next level by those who have experience with it, with color bowls quickly becoming a commodity item. Large container gardens that are tastefully and skillfully put together are where the big bucks are now.
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Using Florel Effectively   Greenhouse Product News October 2002   Roger C. Styer
Many of the new vegetative annuals are quite vigorous and designed for use in larger containers. However, growers are also producing them for individual sale in smaller pots as well as mixed planters. Whether you buy rooted or unrooted cuttings, the problems are the same ? get plants to branch early to fill out the pots faster and control the growth late.
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Pack Trial Curiosities   Greenhouse Product News July 2002   Rick Schoellhorn, University of Florida
I selected the following plants because they are easy to produce or offer a very specialized look. All of these plants have a place in the component plant world and most will add something different to any container. This is by no means all of the incredible new crops I saw at Pack Trials this year but a good sampling of some new directions in crop development.
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Begonia Basket Options from the Pack Trials 2002   Greenhouse Product News June 2002   Rick Schoellhorn, University of Florida
Why begonia basket options? As we move into a retail market that is always looking for instant gardens, this group of plants provides a huge selection of varieties for both Northern and Southern growers.
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Vegetative Victory   Greenhouse Product News June 2002   Terri W. Starman and Kristen L. Eixmann
This year at the Pack Trials in California, growers got a sneak preview of the many exciting new species of vegetative annuals that will be on the market next year (see pages 24 and 100 for details). So if you haven’t started growing vegetative annuals, it’s time to start because they are not going away.
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Editors’ Pick of the Pack   Greenhouse Product News June 2002   Brandi D. Thomas and Bridget White
This month and next, we’ll present the Pack Trials from several different perspectives, starting right here with some of the varieties our editors thought were really outstanding. In order to get good coverage, GPN’s editors took the divide and conquer method — Brandi tackled the Northern sites and Bridget took the South.