At two separate locations, the Dümmen Group presented its new take on several lines of plant genetics from the many companies under its brand umbrella. For the second year at Edna Valley Vineyards in San Luis Obispo, the Dummen Group presented new varieties of Red Fox plants, along with the HGTV HOME Plant Collection. Meanwhile, Dummen Group held its second trial location about 30 minutes up the road, at BarrelHouse Brewery in Paso Robles. Both locations were beautiful settings, but the vineyard provided especially lovely panoramic views through the tasting room window.

Vaughn Fletcher with McHutchison Horticultural Distributors is part of Greenhouse Grower’s Medal Of Excellence For Industry’s Choice Panel. Fletcher recounted some of the standout varieties he saw while visiting Suntory Flowers and Westhoff during California Spring Trials.

All-America Selections (AAS) in partnership with Perennial Plant Association (PPA) will launch an herbaceous perennial trial, with entries due this July. It will follow many of the basics of the recently launched AAS Vegetative Ornamental trial. Entries accepted will be herbaceous perennials propagated from seed, cutting, tissue culture or bare root.

The Spring Trials exhibit at Windmill Nursery in Buellton is a fairly new location as of 2014, and it continues to evolve, with a number of new suppliers presenting their wares. Kientzler, Terra Nova Nurseries and PAC-Elsner presented new varieties while McConkey, Pelemix and Dramm promoted their products.

The new milkweed ‘Monarch’s Promise’ aims to improve butterflies’ forage options, and it’s already working. Plus, chck out the action from GroLink’s 11 displaying companies.

Current breeding efforts have focused on vegetable varieties that cater to small space and urban gardening trends and offer consumers good performance with minimal efforts. As a result, new, easy care vegetable introductions packed with flavor and loaded with fruits have swept onto the market. Here are 18 of the newest vegetables already on the market or hitting the market in 2016.

The re-focused emphasis on green infrastructure projects, naturalistic design and sustainable landscaping opens the way for growers to source more native plants and grasses.

Day two of California Spring Trials was packed with breeders and all their new introductions and marketing. Allan Armitage found several varieties he felt were worth a second look.

On his third day of California Spring Trials, Dr. Allan Armitage visited two Dümmen sites and HGTV HOME Plants. (Full disclosure: Dr. Armitage consults for HGTV HOME Plants.) Take a look at the new introductions that caught his eye during these stops.

The team from Mast Young Plants, based in Grand Rapids, Mich., and part of Greenhouse Grower’s Medal Of Excellence For Industry’s Choice Panel, recounted their first day at California Spring Trials, and let us know what caught their attention. The team includes Jim Raterink, Laura Robles and Brian Weesies.

Floranova received some excellent feedback from the market about its Bossa Nova Begonia boliviensis series after introducing the first six colors in 2014. That recognition included receiving Greenhouse Grower’s Medal Of Excellence Editor’s Choice Award during Evening Of Excellence at Cultivate’14. At California Spring Trials, Floranova introduced six new colors for the Bossa Nova series that it will add for 2016, and whereas the original six were bright and vibrant colors, the new ones are softer, including a new White variety.

Terra Nova Nurseries, a world leader in plant breeding and genetics, during the last 10 months collaborated with select editors of Martha Stewart Living magazine to plan a feature story and photo spread about heucheras and heucherellas. And see the eight new varieties that are now available to growers as pre-ordered liners.

This is the first installment of a four-part series that will bring you up to speed on what it takes to fulfill food safety mandates for greenhouse production.