One Grower’s Take on a Busy Month for Green Industry Events

Posted by Brian Sparks|February 2, 2023

“The excitement was incredible, the food was occasionally superb, and the company was wonderful.” This is how the team at Hoffman Nursery in Rougemont, NC, described the wave of industry events that kicked off 2023. “Between MANTS and Green & Growin’, we saw a wide array of people and had some fascinating discussions about grasses and sedges.”

Much of the talk at MANTS was about spring orders and what’s trending in the world of grasses. There was also increased interest in native plants and functional uses of grasses.

“We’ve been talking about this for a while now, and it feels like the trend is continuing,” the team notes. “This was especially the case with landscape architects and designers. Many growers also said they’re moving native plants for large landscape jobs as well.”

At the Hoffman Nursery booth, attendees were excited about ground covers. They stopped to run their fingers through the fine texture foliage of Nassella tenuissima and Deschampsia flexuosa and loved the colors of Carex testacea ‘Prairie Fire’ and Carex oshimensis EverColor ‘Everlime’ PP25622. They also enjoyed looking through the Covering Ground chart Hoffman created last year for its catalog.

If you’re reading this and you attended MANTS, TPIE, or any other event in January, we’d love to hear your takeaways! Let us know by commenting below, or emailing [email protected].