In This Issue
Record Growing Media volumes continue to keep all garden centre sales at all time summer high
Pleydell Smithyman celebrate 25 years working with garden centres
READYBLAZE … Safer, Greener and Ready to Burn
Apta looks to strengthen merchandising team
Traeger – the original wood pellet grill
Global Journey Christmas Face Masks coming soon
The Greener Gardening Company works around the clock to meet exceptional demand for growing media 
August heads for all time record plant sales
Look on The Brightside with WIDDOP and Co.
LOFA and the Garden Centre Association grow together
Ball Colegrave reveals top varieties for 2021
Will commercial drivers drown out green recovery?
Children grow their own chips, thanks to Squire's
On The Road – The WIDDOP Roadshow
Glee New Product Awards entries start pouring in
Garland opens new warehouse as sales increase £1m so far this season
Never fear, Glee Daily News is here
Get your own copy of GTN Xtra
Pots and pot feet figure large in Bestsellers
Covid-19 incidents at Dobbies in Ayr and British Garden Centres at East Durham
August growing media up by 50% already
Feeding garden visitors of the wild variety
The best of last week's
Customers saddened by garden centre closure
Heavy rain dampens sales at garden centres
Cowell’s embraces back-to-school photo opportunity
Face masks from Global Journey are a garden centre bestseller
Introducing Glee Gathering, 15-16 Sept 2020
The UK’s £3.7 billion garden glow up
Garden Centre Photo Tours
Haskins Snowhill re-opens after £15m re-vamp
Bestsellers Top 50 charts every week
Buy your subscription to the GTN Bestsellers printed weekly newsletter
All the latest news from the world of pet products
Burston celebrates International Dog Day with owners and pets
Supreme capitalises on well-known names
Situations Vacant
Apta looks to strengthen merchandising team
Four Product Merchandiser vacancies
 

Apta, the leading supplier of quality flowerpots and accessories to the UK garden trade, is looking to strengthen its merchandising team with the recruitment of motivated and ambitious Product Merchandisers...

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Ball Colegrave reveals top varieties for 2021

 

The Summer Trials at Ball Colegrave were probably one of the only Professional Trial Grounds in the UK, or even Europe, opening its doors to its customers this season.  

 

“Trialling is at the heart of everything we do as we believe it is incredibly important for anyone involved in production and retail to see how the up and coming new plant developments perform in real growing and garden conditions,” said Stuart Lowen. 

 

“So, we were delighted to have been able to open our doors and receive so many trade visitors this summer."

 

The ‘working trials’ this summer focussed on both Annuals and Perennials and provided some great insight into both existing, new and over 1,000 experimental varieties.  

 

As always, Ball Colegrave offers visitors the opportunity to vote for their favourite varieties from any of the trials or displays and are delighted to share these results with you. This year they have presented the results of the top Annual and Perennial varieties separately. There was certainly a significant increase of interest in Perennials this year, demonstrated by 50% of the votes being cast for Perennial varieties.

 

Customers’ favourite varieties for 2021 – Annuals

 

 

NEW Nemesia ‘Lady Lisa’… voted for by visitors as their overall favourite Annual Plant variety

 

 

There appears to be an almost insatiable market demand for Nemesia. This is somewhat driven by the incredible advances of breeders to develop outstanding colour breaks such as those in the Lady™ and Sundae series coupled with their reliability for growers in pot production, great retail colour presence and outstanding garden performance in all weathers. 

 

One of 4 outstanding new colour additions for 2021 to the Lady™ series of British bred Nemesia, Lisa remained a clear leader throughout the summer trials.  

 

Its remarkably large, exquisite bicolour flowers have a most unique clean deep colouring, a light scent and is quite different from many other varieties currently on the market. The long flower performance and strong, yet compact and controlled  habit makes Lady™ Lisa ideal for 10cm - 1 litre retail pot  sales. 

 

Other colours in the Lady™ series include Dawn, Emma and Jane, with additional new colours for 2021; Anne, Kate and Mary. 

 

Garden height and spread 25 – 30cm. 

 

Available from Ball Colegrave as a Ball 84 and Ball 142 plug, delivery weeks 6 - 20. The plugs are ready-pinched and ‘breaking’… perfect to simply pot and sell! A high impact colour Ball label is supplied with the plugs.  

 

Osteospermum ‘Serenity Sunshine Beauty’ and Calibrachoa ‘Can Can® Orange Punch’.

 

Customers Favourite Varieties for 2021 – Perennials

 

 

NEW Rudbeckia Sunbeckia Series...voted for by visitors as their overall favourite Perennial plant variety

 

 

This genus was thoroughly trialled at Ball Colegrave this summer, coinciding with extensive trials also carried out across Europe by Fleuroselect, including Floral Fantasia in the grounds of RHS Hyde Hall. 

 

So, we were delighted to discover that it was a Rudbeckia which stole the show for Perennial varieties at our own summer trials this July. 

 

Out of all the Rudbeckia we trialled, the Sunbeckia® series has truly been outstanding, especially considering that just one plug filled a 23cm pot and produced over 50+ flowers in one season!

 

From the series the most popular variety has been Sophia, a plant with good vigour and large, long-lasting happy yellow flowers with a central green eye. 

 

Other colours in the series available for 2021 include; Alicia, Laura, Luna, Mia, Ophelia & Victoria.  

 

Garden height and spread 45-50cm 

 

Available from Ball Colegrave as a Ball 40 plug, delivery weeks 18 & 20. All plugs are ready-pinched and ‘breaking’… perfect to simply pot into 3 to 5 litre pots and sell in as little as 8 weeks or, bump-up into much larger patio tubs to maximise retail sales opportunities right into autumn.  

 

Agastache Morello and Penstemon Dakota Burgundy.

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