April 11, 2016 – This is my first of several California Spring Trials online reports for Greenhouse Canada. Please follow these stories throughout the week to see what’s caught my eye.
• ‘Vega Red’ is a beautiful new red addition to Gediflora’s lineup of garden mums. It has large, burgundy flowers with excellent colour retention, a medium vigour and is an early-season variety.
• Hort Couture continues to add new colours and forms to its smash-hit Under The Sea series of coleus. ‘Sea Monkey Purple’ is a dwarf variety, forming a tight, dense mound with max. It is 7” in height and has an 8” spread, making it more suited to containers and fairy gardening. Sea Monkey is a truly dwarf sub-series, so it shouldn’t be compared to the original Under The Sea series. ‘Sea Monkey Purple’ is my favourite for both colour and texture.
• Suntory has added a beautiful new colour to its very popular Sun Parasol Series of mandevillea. ‘Apricot,’ new for 2016-17, has a delicate golden-apricot colour that contrasts with the dark-green foliage, creating a great tropical look. Keep in mind that the Sun Parasol Series is mandevillea, not dipladenia, so it trails and climbs vigourously.
Brad McMillan is the territory manager of North, Central and Eastern Ontario for JVK, one of Canada’s leading suppliers to the horticulture industry. JVK is based in St. Catharines, Ontario, but provides sales, customer care, and logistics services across all of Canada. The corporate website and webstore is at www.jvk.net.
Print this page
