What’s Popular & How Do Growers Use That Feedback?

What is everybody looking for this year? Everybody wants something small and low-maintenance, something that they don’t need to maintain but that blooms all year. Hydrangeas, summer blooming paniculata hydrangeas, are just so low-maintenance and incredibly popular.

I’m like, what’s everybody else moving? What are they doing? Where are we missing the boat? Where can we capitalize and make sure we’re not missing out on opportunities? And just because it works up in Brecksville doesn’t mean it’s gonna work down where we’re at. And so there are certain things that are very localized.

And we were probably one of the first ones to turn on the Bobo hydrangea. I think we were moving Bobos long before anybody else was. And I kept asking our suppliers, like, grow more, grow more. I never get enough.

And there’s a few other plants that we’re in that same boat with right now. Tater Tot is one. It’s this little tiny arborvitae that stays like two by two. And I’m like, I’ll pre-order 500 for next year. Please grow more.

And they need that feedback because they have one of the hardest jobs in the country. We actually have a big meeting up there usually in July sometime where we go up to the test gardens, which is one of my favorite trips up there. We get to go up there and see what is being experimented with for the future. Some of these plants don’t even have names. They’re just numbers in the test garden. And we get to see how they react in a natural environment, not technically like a growing production environment. But once they’re planted in the ground, what do these plants do?

But they’ll trial them in containers like in a nursery setting. They’ll have them in the ground with no maintenance to see how they would do in the real world, treated in most landscapes, and how they compare. And they track that. They have a whole research and development team that will report on that. And then they make the decision of, you know, is this something we want to bring into our line or did it just not cut it?

Because the breeders will give you a line, but it doesn’t always do what they say it’s going to do. So that real world testing saves us from recommending a plant that’s not of the quality that it should be, you know. And that’s huge because for us, okay, we’re bringing in 50 of them. They’re growing 50,000. If you’re going to buy 50,000 liners and put them in the containers, try to grow them on, that could be a very costly mistake if it doesn’t perform like it’s supposed to. So that’s where the test gardens help them and help us.

Questions? Email us at [email protected] or call one of our two locations: Portage (330-499-0101) or Everhard (330-492-1243).