Agapanthus praecox 'HPP4087' (AMOURETTE SUPERB WHITE) has been awarded the Green Retail Award for the Best Novelty of PLANTARIUM|GROEN-Direkt. The plant was submitted by Highland Potplants from ’s-Gravenzande. The award was presented during GROEN-Direkt’s Summer Days.

Agapanthus praecox 'HPP4087' (AMOURETTE SUPERB WHITE) produces an abundance of bright white flowers on many flower stems with many flowers in each inflorescence. The perpetually flowering plant keeps producing new stems. The KVBC jury was very impressed by the good presentation featuring small, but lavishly flowering plants of garden-centre quality.

Before the presentation of the award, fair director Linda Hoogendoorn-Veelenturf and fair manager Marjolein Wieckardt announced the new umbrella name of the inspections: the Green Retail Awards. With these Green Retail Awards PLANTARIUM|GROEN-Direkt offers entrepreneurs a platform on which to place their innovations in the limelight. The Green Retail Awards comprise three categories: Best Novelty, Best Market Innovation and the Visitors’ Favourite.

“Novelties and innovation are very important for our sector, which is why we, as the organisers of this fair, aim to encourage such developments. These Green Retail Awards enable us to evolve the inspections into an internationally recognised contest in which we want the Best Market Innovation to be the spearhead,” said Marjolein.

Linda Hoogendoorn-Veelenturf added that the Best Market Innovation is a valuable award in which garden centre buyers and retailers are particularly interested. “The jury members are plant buyers from within and outside the Netherlands who assess the products’ marketability. Important criteria besides product quality and availability are e.g. sustainability, innovativeness and the degree to which the product meets a current market or target-group requirement. We also work together with a garden centre or retail organisation that forms part of the jury and offers the winners a platform in their shops on which to present their products to consumers. This year this is the Intratuin chain of garden centres. It will be a different international retail organisation each year.”

Fifteen plants had been submitted for this first summer edition of the inspection for the PLANTARIUM|GROEN-Direkt Best Novelty, of which twelve were eventually evaluated. In addition to the gold medal for the Best Novelty, the jury also awarded three silver and three bronze medals. The plants submitted for the Best Novelty award are inspected by a jury of expert inspection committees of the Koninklijke Vereniging voor Boskoopse Culturen (KVBC; Royal Boskoop Horticultural Society).

The autumn edition of PLANTARIUM|GROEN-Direkt will take place on 23 and 24 August 2023, from 7 a.m. until 5 p.m. (4 p.m. on the Thursday), in and around GROEN-Direkt’s hall at the International Trade Centre in Hazerswoude/Boskoop (the Netherlands). For more information go to https://plantariumgroendirekt.nl/. The fair is exclusively accessible to professional visitors after prior registration via the website.