Spring Rush 2019

Your inventory defines your garden center for neighborhood customers  

Spring has arrived and it will be in town for the next 10 days. You couldn’t tell that to the folks to the west and north of us, but the weather has been beautiful around here. We checked the long range forecast and it looks like Spring is here to stay. That’s a forecast so take it with a grain of salt, but consumers do react when the soil and the weekends warm up at last.

Of course, this also means it is time to get the garden centers ready with fun and colorful material for the influx of customers browsing for ideas. Let’s take a quick walkthrough to point out a few of the interesting items we have on hand, but keep in mind—this is only the tip of the crop. We pride ourselves on selection and diversity, so we have over 450 different cultivars to help our customers compete with interesting, unique, and desirable material.

Dalaya Dahlias we wrote about in spring are shipping now, like ‘Pink + Lemon’

You will notice in our Availability that we use codes to indicate the shipping status of each plant. We use these codes to help you understand the status of the plant in the tray:

EYE-CATCHING

Vibrant flowers color the home like nothing else. It’s hard to pick out just a handful when we have hundreds of equally good choices. However, if you have room on your order try to pick up some of the items we’ve listed below. This is material that will be stunning for the shopper but also showcases the feeling of health and vigor that rewards the gardener once they take it home. As of Monday, here are some good suggestions:

• Bacopa ‘MegaCopa White’: 4.5-inch pot
• Begonia Reiger in 6 colors: 10-inch hanging basket
• Winged Begonia Mistral in 4 colors: 10-inch hanging basket
• Dianthus ‘Floral Lace Crimson’: 1203 flat
• Streptocarpella ‘Blue Concord’: 10-inch hanging basket
• Dalaya Dahlia in 3 colors: 8-inch pot
• Impatiens Mixes in four styles: 1203 flat
• Impatiens Solids in 10 different colors: 1203 flat

Calibrachoa Mixes—our house speciality—are heavy bloomers for April and May

EARLY CALIBRACHOA

Our first crops of Calibrachoa are now shipping. We like to specialize in this crop because it can cover a hanging basket with bursting color, an achievement hard to match with other plants. Calibrachoas are especially good for mixes because the flowers come in a range of bright solids, muted pastels, and fun patterns. Their cultivation is all very similar, so we can have a lot of fun putting together our wide variety of Diefenbacher-developed mixes. If you need this kind of capability for your combos and planters, we also sell a large assortment of pots along with the baskets.

• ‘Cabaret Bright Red’
• ‘Cabaret Hot Pink’
• ‘Can Can Pink Bumblebee'
• Ruby Sapphire Mix (Blue and Red)
• Heat Wave Mix (Red and Orange)
• Cottage Delight Mix (Purple, Lemon, and two Pinks)
• Cherry Sunshine Mix (Orange, Bright Red, and Deep Yellow)
• Pink Plunge Mix (Hot and Light Pink)
• Sugar Plum Fairy Mix (Orange, Purple, and Yellow)
• Blue Flamingo Mix (Hot and Light Pink along with Deep Blue)

Design with Canna foliage as well as flowers—mix bronze and green leaves

CANNA AS FOLIAGE

Canna can be used as a foliage plant as well as for its flower because the leaves have contrasting colors and stripes. We’ve passed a number of business signs featuring a stand of Cannas on either side. In the Spring these are beautiful plants and when Summer arrives their flowers pop out—surprise! It helps that the Cannova series all grow to the same height, so you can feature a solid color or a planter’s mix.

• ‘Cannova Bronze Leaf Scarlet’: 4.5- and 8-inch pot
• ‘Cannova Green Leaf Red Shades’: 8-inch pot
• ‘Red Velvet’ (Bronze Leaf with Red): 8-inch pot

'Diamond Frost'—a spring staple that handles several different jobs in the garden

SPECIALTY

Our unique accents and specimens add that special touch when creating displays for spring. ‘Diamond Frost’ sparkles in an all-white garden—and giant Castor Bean is a head-turning centerpiece. Grasses are also commonly found in gardens and planters, so we have a good selection of the important ones.

• Castor Bean: 1-gallon pot
• Euphorbia ‘Diamond Frost’: 4.5-inch pot
• Pennisetum rubrum (Purple Fountain Grass): 4.5-inch pot
• Isolepsis ‘Fiber Optic’: 4.5-inch pot
• Juncus ‘Blue Arrows’: 4.5-inch pot

‘Silverdust’—a classic component for gardens, combos, and planters

Components

As much as we like to talk about the flashy stuff, it’s important to have the dependable and reliable standards as well. This is true especially for components, which need to support a design rather than detract from it. We use this material in our work as well, so we choose cultivars with a long shelf life, a vibrant feel of health, and the ability to handle swings in temperature, soil, or humidity.

Designers reach for components because of the interesting shapes and textures they bring to the table. Neutral whites like ‘Silverdust’, sharp spikes like Dracaena, and ferny greens of Sprengeri—we have all the dressings you will need to round out the garden center.

• Dracaena ‘Spike’: 1801 flat, 4-inch pot, and 1-gallon pot
• Dusty Miller ‘Silverdust’: 1203 flat and 4.5-inch pot
• Sprengeri Asparagus Fern: 1801 flat and 4-inch pot
• Spider Plant: 4.5-inch pot
• Vinca Vine in 3 kinds: 1801 flat

‘Big Rainbow’ has beautiful red stripes that complement its sweet taste

VEGETABLES

We have the standards that gardeners like to plant every year—varieties like ‘Big Beef’ Tomato and ‘Big Bertha’ Bell Pepper, but we also grow edibles that are not commonly found in the chains. For example, ‘Big Rainbow’ is as close to eating a peach as you can get with a Tomato, and ‘Ball Zucchini’ is ideal for smaller gardens that still want summer squash.

• Tomatoes
  ‘Big Beef’: 1202 flat, 1801 flat, and 4.5-inch pot
  ‘Better Boy’: 1801 flat
  ‘Big Rainbow’: 1801 flat
• Bell Peppers
  ‘Big Bertha’ (green): 1801 flat
  ‘Red Knight’: 1801 flat 
• Squash ‘Ball Zucchini’: 1801 flat

If you want to be the center of your local garden neighborhood, be sure to browse our selection and order the plants that will catch your customer’s eye. We like to grow the different, the unique, and the special material that helps to turn your business into a destination.