October 2008 - Posts

Cordylines are a personal favourite of mine, we have grown millions of them over the years at Seiont.

Red Star has always been the most popular, with others such as Sundance, Torbay Dazzler and plain old australis always favourites.

There is now a new variety, which is set to take the world market by storm. Forget about Pink Stripe or Southern Splendour

PINK PASSION is what you need!

Discovered by Seiont and Myerscough College in the late 1990’s. We have been carefully developing a World Wide network of propagators and growers to take this spectacular, new variety to the global retail market.

It is a perfect example of the benefits of networking and knowledge sharing, something we just don’t do enough of in the UK. From the Tissue labs in Scotland and Israel to the growing and marketing in UK/Europe and USA , it is all co-ordinated from here in North Wales!

In the UK selected plant finishers have assessed it for production and potential sales performance, and it has ticked all the boxes!

The lead UK finisher is Darby Nursery Stock, who are offering garden Centres quality 2 Litre and 7 Litre patio pots in Summer 2009.

Darbys launched Pink Passion at GLEE earlier this year where many agreed it was the best new plant at the show.

Other companies licensed to supply the retailers are Liss Forest, Lowaters, Farplants, Bransford Webbs and Mahoods

Pink Passion is being marketed through the Globe Planter brand in France, Spain and Portugal, the first sales started in late 2007 where garden centres sold out in a single weekend.

The biggest market is the USA where Pacific Plugs and Liners are leading, Ryan Hall of PP&L told me "Pacific Plug & Liner grows approximately 10 varieties of Cordyline. "Pink Passion" has been the most admired and talked about variety that we have ever introduced.

Growers and Retailers both are anticipating a great response from their customers when "Pink Passion" hits the US market in 2009"

Liners will be available for 2009 and 2010 in the UK and Europe from Seiont.

For further information go to www.provarplants.co.uk/provar-plants/plant-detail.php?plantid=50

Have you seen Cordyline Pink Passion? Do you want Pink Passion? What do you think? Is there another new plant that you think deserves recognition? Comments please!

Neil Alcock

23/10/2008

Posted Oct 23 2008, 07:19 AM by Neil Alcock with 7 comment(s)

"Growing for Gold"!

Undoubtedly Plantarium is a key show for the plant buyer in North Western Europe and over the years it has come to be a launch pad for some really fantastic developments in perennials, shrubs and climbers.

The year 2008 was no exception and it was a miracle that many of the growers presenting new varieties have managed to obtain a good show of flowers in a year which was characterised by very variable temperatures, low light levels and quite hostile growing conditions.

Whilst we British are all bursting with national pride over the success of our athletes at the two Olympics We, and many of the members of trade, would like to see more coverage in the trade magazines and wholesale catalogues of the undoubted future success of British bred shrubs in the Gold, Silver and Bronze Medal categories. Apart from the two medals won by Peter Catt at Liss Forest Nursery there were no other English successors whatsoever and sadly none elsewhere in Great Britain.

Peter Catt the Veitch Memorial Medal (VMM) holder given by the RHS for outstanding services to British gardeners has a long track record of introducing garden worthy plants to British and European gardeners commencing with Choisya Sundance in 1986. Since then there has been a regular flow of introductions in a whole range of species, e.g. Spiraea, Potentilla, Caryopteris `First Choice’ etc.

We are particularly interested as to how Caryopteris `Sterling Silver’ had been bred and looking at its pedigree it is very clear what Peter Catt had in mind. He was seeking an intense violet colour and high flower power of Caryopteris and to enhance and contrast this with the best silver pearl grey foliage ever seen. After sowing thousands of seedlings for many years, it was this single seedling which delivered the goods. Sadly, on the Plantarium days flowering of all this species group of Caryopteris was 3 weeks later than the norm. Otherwise, one can only summise that a gold medal would have been awarded. We have no record of a flowering shrub ever being awarded a Silver medal on its foliage alone and without the benefit of the flowers that were showing as buds.

Peter also received a Bronze medal for `Hint of Gold’, which was also not in flower and which would have no doubt been a sensation had it been in flower. The foliage is hot lime green, and so vivid that the leaf sheen in sunlight makes ones eyes water! Photographed 3 weeks later `Hint of Gold’ presents its later flowering as spires of intense violet flowers at the tips of the flowering shoots in what we believe is a unique way for this type of Caryopteris. The cross is also particularly unusual and shows how many years of work Peter Catt has put into this concept, using both clandonensis and low altitude C. incana.

We also have seen in trade trials the new compact Perovskia from Peter Catt which is stiff, well formed and with masses of flowers which we anticipate he will be showing to the international trade at Plantarium 2009 along with his brand new compact Golden Choisya `Golden Gift’ which looks as though it’s going to deliver a good finished plant to the retailer with less work and manipulation required to produce a compact dense foliage plant. We know of many other Peter Catt innovations already in the pipeline at Liss Forest but for reasons of trade confidentiality we are not able to comment freely upon those but have no doubt that Peter Catt will be “Going for gold” in 2009 and every year thereafter.

We do hope that the British trade will support British breeding and that our colleagues in the publicity business will remember that we are all in this industry together and hope to see more correct, timely and enthusiastic promotion of the clear merits of `local’ varieties. The Dutch and Belgium Trades and journalist are not going to do it for us and we have to stand up to promote our own home grown successes.

For more information on Peter Catt’s varieties and many other British Breeders and Growers, visit www.provarplants.co.uk and www.genesis-plantmarketing.co.uk

This blog was written with Peter Dealtry and based on information from Peter Catt.

Neil Alcock

07/10/2008

Posted Oct 08 2008, 08:13 AM by Neil Alcock with no comments

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