Sakata Ornamentals’ 2016 California Spring Trials Birthday Bash Celebrates SunPatiens

Sakata is celebrating 10 years of SunPatiens production, and a whopper-sized, three-layer SunPatiens cake was featured at Sakata’s display at California Spring Trials.

There are four new colors in SunPatiens, three compact and one spreading, with lots more to come. The Mix it Up combos promise three seasons of color — rain or shine, sun or shade. ‘Sunpatiens Shell Pink’ is not new this year, but is still noteworthy as a recent All-American Selections winner.

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It was impossible not to notice the electric colors in the Majorette Gerbera line. This new series promises uniformity, a characteristic hard to achieve in gerberas. It comes in six colors, plus one orange color with a ring around the eye. Also worth mentioning is a Clear White, another breeding challenge for gerberas.

There are two new mixes in the SuperCal Petchoa line. The Pink Lemonade mix received a lot of attention from trial attendees. Sakata hopes to hit three markets with its SuperCal plants: individual colors for people who want to create their own combinations, the home gardener who doesn’t know which colors look good together, and impulse buyers who simply demand that it looks good.

 

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New Cut Flower Line With P. Allen Smith

The P. Allen Smith Home Grown Garden Collection now includes cross-over, cut flower varieties, including the Delphinium Planet series in two new colors; an early bloomer that works as a bedding plant; and a mildew-resistant ‘Sunflair’ sunflower. The drought-tolerant Gomphrena Ping Pong series worked wonderfully in combos, especially with zinnias, providing a strong infusion of bright color. It comes in three new colors and works well in mass plantings. Sakata is targeting the novelty market with unique black-pearl and lavender-brown color additions in the Lisianthus Rosanne I and a new Rosanne II series.

Home Grown Veggies For Foodies
‘Fresh Start’ beetless-beet is new and should be especially popular with foodies and container veggie gardeners. Grown for its baby greens, this quick crop produces in 25 to 30 days for continuous harvests and shoots stay small, even at 60 days.

Improved for 2016, ‘Takara’ pepper has a refined plant habit with better basal branching and a mild taste. Also new is the ‘Midas’ pepper, which starts green and turns to a dark gold.

New tomatoes are the Saladette indeterminate, and the indeterminate, disease-resistant ‘Think Pink.’ Sakata is also working on a new yellow addition, coming soon, to the Red Robin cherry tomato line.

Sakata is also collaborating with P. Allen Smith on a Home Grown vegetable line, now available through mail-order catalogs. Senior Marketing Manager Alecia Troy says the company is excited to work with someone on the homegrown side with such a positive influence on the industry.

Space Flowers On Display And Great Marketing Ideas From MasterTag
A couple of fun presentations were the space flowers, Sakata’s Profusion Double zinnias grown in space, and MasterTag’s marketing display. The MasterTag display, done in conjunction with Summit Plastics, was a wealth of marketing ideas featuring consumer-ready themes, including:

  • Autumn Hues, a season-extender product for fall with whiskey barrel pots and coordinating tags.
  • The NCAA and NFL Spotlight packages, done in coordination with Sporticulture, with licensed pennant- and helmet-shaped tags.
  • Starter gardens and kitchen garden displays with production-friendly, self-merchandisable product, which included a tri-pot handle for grab-n-go herbs and veggies and multiple surfaces for graphics.

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