ICYMI: Raker-Roberta’s 2023 Trials to Focus on Color Trends and Cut Flowers
February 23, 2023 
Raker-Roberta’s Young Plants in Litchfield, MI, is in early planning mode for its 2023 plant trials. We recently checked in with Emily Wildt, Regional Sales and Trial Garden Director at Raker-Roberta, to get a sneak peek at what’s on tap this year.
Greenhouse Grower (GG): Can you talk about how you’re incorporating Pantone’s color of the year into this year’s trials?
Emily Wildt: We have done comparison trials based on color in the past, such as pink petunias, but we haven’t done anything specific to Pantone’s color of the year. We just had a recent change in management with our trials; our long-time trial garden manager Greg Michalak, retired in December. So I sat down with Kristi Challender, our Trial Garden Operations Manager, to talk about what we could do this year that would be different. While Greg has done a fantastic job, we wanted to do something unique. We had an empty bed that had been full for a long time, which led us to considering a Color of the Year trial. We really like the choice of Viva Magenta, and all the different varieties that we’d be able to explore.
GG: When it comes to color, do you work with your customers, whoever they may be, on how color can align with their ultimate goals?
Emily Wildt: When we’re trying to decide what we’re going to put in our gardens, we start by asking breeders and other industry people for ideas, and of course we ask our coworkers here about any ideas they have. Because we use the broker network to sell our product, there’s unfortunately not enough direct interaction with our customers. I do go out and visit customers on a regular basis, but it rarely involves color. I’m not saying we won’t discuss that when they come out and visit the trials this summer. Someone might may say they’re glad we did a magenta trial because they wanted to see what kind of magenta species and varieties are out there. I’m sure those conversations will happen.
GG: Are there any other trial changes that you’re looking at as you plan for 2023?
Emily Wildt: We are expanding our cut flower trial bed; it’s going to triple in size. Because it was new to us at the time, last year we approached cut flowers from more of an R&D perspective to decide what we could offer in our cut flower program. It was only 10 or 12 rows. This year it’s definitely going to expand, and we are also going to do a sponsorship showcase where breeders and brokers can pay to sponsor a 12-foot section just like they would a row in the regular trial gardens. We will also have a comparison trial with lisianthus this year, as well as our R&D program for 2024-2025. I’m really proud of the cut flower trial, and I hope that’s going to attract a whole different side of the market than Raker is used to supplying.
Learn more at http://trialgardens.raker.com/.
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