California Spring Trials 2022 Preview: Green Fuse Botanicals, Hem Genetics, Beekenkamp, and More
CAST 2022 kicks off on March 30, and your experience will be different depending on which route you take along the California coast.
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Lobelia Rift Series (Westhoff)
The new Rift Series features two colors: ‘Rift Blue’ and ‘Rift Purple’. These siblings match well together to create the new Passion Combo Great Rift Mix (pictured
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Tradescantia 'Pistachio White' (Green Fuse Botanicals)
A breeding breakthrough allows this all-new tradescantia to maintain heavy white variegation while still supporting vigorous growth. It is an excellent selection for monoculture in quarts through hanging baskets, as well an eye-popping combination item. Year-round sales are simple as a spring or foliage item.
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Streptocarpus 'Ladyslippers Azure' (Green Fuse Botanicals)
A classic house plant has all new life with 'Ladyslippers Azure'. Not only great timing for Pantone’s color of the year, Azure delights homeowners with dozens of blooms every day of the year. Extremely simple culture virtually guarantees grower and consumer success.
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Petunia multiflora 'Mambo GP Yellow Lime' (Hem Genetics)
Yellow Lime is a unique new color available in our multiflora Mambo GP series. The flower color is a light yellow with a prominent lime green overtone, ideal to bring a sunny color to the landscape or to use in designer mixes with other colors. Mambo, being genetically dwarf, requires no plant growth regulators in production. The plants stay compact in the garden and cover themselves with prolific flowers.
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Petunia 'Mambo Limbo GP Designer Pastel Mixture' (Hem Genetics)
This beautiful new Pastel Mix utilizes colors from both of our genetically dwarf petunia series for maximum impact and performance in garden containers, hanging baskets or ground beds. Because they are genetically dwarf, they look great all summer long, and don’t get leggy and require pruning and cleaning like most petunias.
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Petunia Flower Shower series (Westhoff)
This new series from Westhoff builds on the overwhelming popularity of the two new Crazytunia varieties from last year: Mayan Sunset and Patrick Star. We are moving both, along with a few others into a whole new series perfect for hanging baskets. Heat, drought, and weather tolerant, the Flower Showers series will be the new standard for trailing Petunias.” Pictured: Petunia ‘Flower Shower Golden Harvest’
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Pelargonium ‘Orange Glow’ (Westhoff)
‘Orange Glow’ is a new hybrid pelargonium from PAC that has a unique leaf shape and an even more unique salmon-orange flower color that is electric. It is ideal for summer patio pots or even as an indoor potted item. This new standalone variety is sure to shine in greenhouses and gardens everywhere.
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Lupinus 'Staircase Pink Grapefruit' (Green Fuse Botanicals)
An all-new selection to the wildly popular Staircase series will explode onto the market next season. This bicolor Staircase promotes rose and yellow shades, clearly living up to its name. Like all members of the Staircase series, Pink Grapefruit blooms via temperature and not cooling or daylength.
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Leucanthemum 'Whisker White' (Green Fuse Botanicals)
This is a complete reinvention of the “crazy daisy” type of shasta. Whisker White is completely day length neutral and requires zero cooling hours to bloom. This is scheduling ease for all growers. Its large 5- to 6-inch flowers will continue blooming in the garden all growing season.
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Lavandula angustifolia 'Lovely Sky' (Hem Genetics)
Lovely Sky is a first-year flowering perennial. This lavandula angustifolia is well suited for herb, courtyard and patio gardens, providing fragrance both in the garden or indoor, when dried after harvesting. These plants are highly attractive for bees and other pollinators. The plant height is up to 12 to 16 inches tall and are ideal for 4 to 5 inches to gallon pots.
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Kalanchoe 'Bongo 37' (Beekenkamp)
This is not just your usual Kalanchoe, this is the Bongo Kalanchoe with its outstanding variegated foliage. It is perfect for indoor use and succulent garden bowls, with easy, year-round production. Do not grow it as a normal Kalanchoe, as it has no need for short day treatments. It is good for quart to 6-inch production.
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Dianthus 'Constant Cadence Potpourri' (Green Fuse Botanicals)
A truly unique breeding selection will enter the Constant Cadence series next season. Potpourri offers a multitude of color as the flowers open a deep fuchsia and fade to a bright rose. Many flowers are even half and half in this extremely stable selection. While Zone 4 hardy, Potpourri also makes a beautiful potted plant crop.
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Dianthus Chiba Auricula Mixture (Hem Genetics)
Auricula Mix takes some of the most eye-catching patterns and color combinations to create this unusual and highly attractive mix. One of the advantages of interspecific crosses is that these offspring of the cross bear no seed, so plant efforts go into rapid repeat of flowering. This allows them to create beautiful displays all season long.
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Dianthus Best Friends Forever Series (Westhoff)
The new Best Friends Forever, or BFF, series of Dianthus is the perfect potted/gift item for your bestie. Plants have heavy flowering with your choice of six different colors. They are easy to produce, and continuously bloom and re-bloom with little or no effort from the grower or gardener. Pictured: Dianthus ‘Best Friends Forever Purple Passion’
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Dahlia 'LaBella Medio Fun Pink Flame' (Beekenkamp)
‘LaBella Medio Fun Pink Flame’ is a great new introduction with a beautiful blend of pink and white bicolor blooms. Its stable pattern and the bright contrast of the blooms to foliage makes this one of our new favorites in the line. It is ideal for the quart to 5-inch pot.
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Dahlia 'LaBella Maggiore Fun Chocolate Yellow' (Beekenkamp)
The LaBella Maggiore series, a popular garden performer, gets the Fun Chocolate Yellow. It is unique in its segment, featuring many big filled yellow blooms with incredible dark leaves, which turn into nearly black the more sunlight it gets. There is no requirement for any plant growth regulators, which makes it an economic crop for the producer. It is ideal for the 8 to 10-inch pot, one liner and one pinch only.
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Dahlia 'LaBella Grande Fun Red White' (Beekenkamp)
This is perfect for the gallon and only needs 1 pinched liner. The new ‘LaBella Grande Fun Red White’ stable bicolor cannot be missed. This variety is a stunning introduction with bold bicolor blooms, and the perfect pattern to add as a thriller for patriotic summer planters. ‘LaBella Grande Fun Red White’ creates the wow factor all season long.
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Cyclamen 'Super Serie Leopardo' (Schoneveld)
This large-flowered cyclamen is extremely heat tolerant, blooms earlier than other large-flowered cyclamen and performs well in warmer climates. As you may expect of all cyclamen in our Super Serie, the Leopardo is a strong, compact shaped plant with sturdy stems and a long shelf life.
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Cyclamen 'Super Serie Elegante' (Schoneveld)
This midi-flowered cyclamen is also perfect for warm climates. It flowers earlier and faster than other Cyclamen and does not suffer from heat stress. The uniform-built Elegante has a bit more open plant structure than other cyclamen.
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Chrysanthemum Tamalu Series (Brandkamp)
Tamalu is available in White, Yellow, Pink, Purple, and Apricot. The colors grow evenly, so mixing with different colors is possible without problems. The flowers are large and boast bright colors and a perfect flower shape. Another important advantage is a response time of 6.5 weeks.
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Chrysanthemum Brannoblesse Series (Brandkamp)
The new Brannoblesse family has early flowering in week 33-34. The family comes to the market with White, Yellow, and Pink with a dark center, but other colors are not ruled out. What cannot be taken for granted with early varieties is that Brannoblesse has a round shape and, in any case, enough vigor to fill large containers.
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Chrysanthemum Branmagic Series (Brandkamp)
Branmagic comes in four strong colors — Purple, Pink, Red, and Yellow. The plants form a perfectly round habit and produce countless flowers.
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Calibrachoa 'Dracula' (Westhoff)
Dracula is a new stand-alone, early flowering variety that drips with crimson blooms featuring a large, dramatic black center.
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Calibrachoa 'Cruze Control Pink Flair' (Green Fuse Botanicals)
Extremely unique color patterns burst from this all-new Cruze Control. The series tight habit has made it a grower favorite. It’s day length neutrality allow for sales as soon as the season allows. Strong color patterns will be a retail hit.
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Begonia 'Dreams Frivola Magic' (Beekenkamp)
This round shaped begonia has a double white lime flower, with a shine of pink on the outside petals. It is ideal for the 6-inch pot or bigger. It needs to be finished off in cooler conditions to be used as an outdoor plant. It is ideal for celebrations or as an elegant gift.
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Begonia 'Citizen Cane Pink' (Green Fuse Botanicals)
An all-new addition to the Green Fuse Lifestyle collection, ‘Citizen Cane Pink’ will absolutely demand retail attention. Its crisp dark foliage with clean white polka dots lends well to foliage programs. It will also maintain massive strings of deep pink blossoms with strong fragrance all growing season. Tight internodes and strong stems allow for worry-free shipping.
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Ageratum 'Kona Blue' (Hem Genetics)
This year Hem Genetics is introducing a smaller version of the Aloha series named Kona. It is available this year only in Blue, and Hem hopes to have a white companion for it soon.
View all
Lobelia Rift Series (Westhoff)
Tradescantia 'Pistachio White' (Green Fuse Botanicals)
Streptocarpus 'Ladyslippers Azure' (Green Fuse Botanicals)
Petunia multiflora 'Mambo GP Yellow Lime' (Hem Genetics)
Petunia 'Mambo Limbo GP Designer Pastel Mixture' (Hem Genetics)
Petunia Flower Shower series (Westhoff)
Pelargonium ‘Orange Glow’ (Westhoff)
Lupinus 'Staircase Pink Grapefruit' (Green Fuse Botanicals)
Leucanthemum 'Whisker White' (Green Fuse Botanicals)
Lavandula angustifolia 'Lovely Sky' (Hem Genetics)
Kalanchoe 'Bongo 37' (Beekenkamp)
Dianthus 'Constant Cadence Potpourri' (Green Fuse Botanicals)
Dianthus Chiba Auricula Mixture (Hem Genetics)
Dianthus Best Friends Forever Series (Westhoff)
Dahlia 'LaBella Medio Fun Pink Flame' (Beekenkamp)
Dahlia 'LaBella Maggiore Fun Chocolate Yellow' (Beekenkamp)
Dahlia 'LaBella Grande Fun Red White' (Beekenkamp)
Cyclamen 'Super Serie Leopardo' (Schoneveld)
Cyclamen 'Super Serie Elegante' (Schoneveld)
Chrysanthemum Tamalu Series (Brandkamp)
Chrysanthemum Brannoblesse Series (Brandkamp)
Chrysanthemum Branmagic Series (Brandkamp)
Calibrachoa 'Dracula' (Westhoff)
Calibrachoa 'Cruze Control Pink Flair' (Green Fuse Botanicals)
Begonia 'Dreams Frivola Magic' (Beekenkamp)
Begonia 'Citizen Cane Pink' (Green Fuse Botanicals)
Ageratum 'Kona Blue' (Hem Genetics)
Overall, plan on ten stops this year. PlantHaven, Pacific Plug & Liner, Southern Living/Sunset Western, Suntory Flowers, and Vivero Internacional plan to showcase their plants at the Santa Barbara Polo Club in Carpinteria. Kientzler will join Sakata at its venue this year. Finally, Dümmen Orange has a new location at Filipponi Ranch in San Louis Obispo. For more information on the stops along the route and participating breeders, visit 2022cast.com.
Green Fuse Botanicals is hosting several breeders at its Somis, CA, location. Aside from Green Fuse varieties, participating companies include Beekenkamp, Hem Genetics, Schoneveld Breeding, and Westhoff. Learn more about what you can expect to see here from Green Fuse and others in the slideshow above.
Keep up with other California Spring Trials update at this page on GreenhouseGrower.com.
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Brian Sparks is senior editor of Greenhouse Grower and editor of Greenhouse Grower Technology. See all author stories here.