The Bread And Butter Of Perennials

One of the best conferences I have ever been part of was held in Indianapolis in late September 2006. The Perennial Production Seminar was hosted by Ball Publishing and was attended by 400 or more of the who’s who of production, marketing and promotion of perennials for the greenhouse and nursery industry. They must have run out of speakers so they asked me to talk a little about plant selection. I talked about the great new plants, of course, but the point I was trying to make is that new is good, but tried and true is necessary. Here are some of the plants you should put on your A list. They are not new. In fact, some of the newer cultivars may be better and may be more popular, but these are always asked for, often by name. This list was compiled with the help of many colleagues and could be titled, “Plants That Made A Difference,” as all of them led to additional breeding and introduction of newer cultivars.