tesselaar

Today's guest post comes from Phillip Townshend, global operations director for Tesselaar Plants:

Sustainability & Style Shine at 2012 Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show

By Phillip Townshend

Once again, I'm reminded of why we live in Melbourne, Australia (voted one of the world's most liveable cities on multiple occasions). It's autumn here, and I'm enjoying sunny days and mild temperatures along with the inspiring atmosphere of the world-renowned Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show. (Regarded as the largest and most successful horticultural even in the Southern Hemisphere, the even is now entering its 17th year.)

Staged within the Grand Dame of Melbourne (the World Heritage-listed Royal Exhibition Building and the surrounding Carlton Gardens in the center of Melbourne City), the show is well established in the psyche of Australians as a "must see" event with visitors from around the globe.

Featuring the best landscape and floral talent Australia has to offer, the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show is a celebration of Australian lifestyle and our great outdoors. This year's popular themes have been sustainability and style, and how to combine them in ways even novice gardeners can do.

For me, this year's highlights included:

• The repurposing of tires, old cans and wheelbarrows to make an interesting and entertaining water feature; plus the use of pallets and discarded beds to create raised vegetable beds:

• Inspirational floral design with the conventional interpreted in flowers,fruit and root vegetables. I'm not sure about the longevity of a wedding dress made of garlic, but it would certainly protect the bride against cold & flu (and keep the vampires away):

• Amazing combinations of Australian stone and plants all demonstrating the possibilities for us to use our gardens as an extension of the house (i.e. an outside room that just flows):

• My favorite treat was seeing one of my favorite plants (and one of our own), Tropicanna cannas, included throughout the Carlton Gardens, looking resplendent with the sun shining through their amazing foliage.

So once again, I return home from the show with a thousand ideas of what improvements can be made in my own garden. I'll then spend the rest of the year trying to decide where the design ideas can be replicated in my own surrounds, and how I can start these multiple projects in between the travel around the world required for our business.

If you have a bucket list and you're a gardener, then it's time to make sure that visiting this show is included as one of the key items. This time of year also has Melbourne hosting the month long Comedy Festival (of the same ilk as Edinburgh and Toronto), a food and wine festival and multiple other cultural activities, such as the launch of our Australian Football season, making it an incredible time to be visiting Melbourne.

As I write this, I'm looking at tonight's overnight forecast for my Zone 6b garden in Rochester, NY … 25 degrees!

25 degrees?!! After two weeks of near-record-breaking warmth for the month of March spurred our forsythias, magnolias, tree peonies, lilacs and cherry trees to all bloom about three weeks early? And a frost is going to take that away from me?

Good thing I got my spring on early, by forcing branches into flower early indoors. Little did I know, this would extend the time I could enjoy some of my favorite spring-flowering trees and shrubs – before Mother Nature so ruthlessly turned them into mush.

I got the idea from "Forced Smiles," Denny Schrock's Feb. 23, 2012 post on the Better Homes and Gardens' blog "Everyday Gardeners." It taunted me with images like a contemporary dish garden boasting pussy willows and daffodils, an Asian design featuring the "windswept" red blooms of flowering quince, the cozy cottage garden-look of white crabapple blooms in a simple pastel vase and a pink-themed arrangement featuring deliciously, romantically pink cherry blossoms with pink ranunculus.

Yes, this year's winter had been mild and freakishly devoid of snow, but I still longed for the pastel-colored, sweetly scented blooms of spring. So I headed out with my pruners and started forcing some branches. With the help of a floor vase, the forsythia (first pic in this post) really helped to soften the look of my someone spartan-looking, still-unpainted front foyer. And here's Magnolia 'Royal Star' in a glass jug by my kitchen sink:

The magnolia is definitely my favorite. I'll get to try more next year, however, after this year's planting of magnolias by famous New Zealand breeder Mark Jury (if I was in a warmer climate – Zone 7b or higher - I'd also try Jury's Fairy Magnolia Blush).

Black Tulip

Felix Jury

Fairy Magnolia Blush

Today's guest post – about the 2012 IPM Essen plant show in Essen, Germany –  is from Phillip Townshend, global operations director for Tesselaar Plants.

Phillip Townshend

Garden Ideas Abound at IPM Essen 2012

By Phillip Townshend

Well, they say better late than never … apart from a few exceptions like receiving a bill.

In any event, another year has passed, and as usual the Tesselaar team faced the usual challenge of dragging ourselves off the beach and overcoming the post-Christmas wish that our holidays were longer to make our annual pilgrimage to the mecca of horticulture – IPM Essen in Germany.

This year’s show, like those in the years preceding it, was a source of inspiration that continues to surprise me each year with the innovation, presentation and sheer beauty of the industry I'm lucky enough to work in.

Despite the seasonal challenges (it’s cold and snowy and certainly not the best time to be showing plants), not to mention working with perishable items and the constant changes in fashion and peoples' preferences, each year the displays and presentations continue to motivate us to continually improve our offerings.

Here are some images I couldn’t help but pick out of the thousands of pictures I took for their creativity, color and sometimes fun way of presenting plants and how they can be used to brighten our lives:

Clogs on the wall – the ultimate way to make sure discarded items find a second life/use in beautifying one's surroundings.

Garden love, not war. Who said “Flower Power” disappeared after the 60s? It was just waiting for its chance to be reborn as retro fashion.

Mother-in-laws aren't all bad. Here's an old favorite – snake plant, or mother-in-law's tongue – used innovatively. I don’t know what goes into braiding or plaiting succulents (especially as a father who struggles to do his daughter's hair and encourages her to wear hats when Mom is away), but these simple succulents do have a wow factor.

Blocks of color. This was my personal favorite. It was simple, cheap to construct and added so much fun, plus the ability to block color and cross-merchandise for retailers in a way that had instant pick-me-up appeal.

In fact, this is something that would have me buying horticultural products, even without an industry discount.

Hedge trimmer’s nightmare. As a gardener who has large hedges surrounding his property and English boxwood hedge borders throughout, I couldn't begin to contemplate the amount of work that goes into making the this VW Beetle and maintaining it.

Not something for everyone, but it certainly has its place and carried the galloping horse qualification – you had to stop and admire it.

Well, that's it for another year. I hope you find enough inspiration from the images to get gardening and look at ways to brighten your surrounding for the year ahead.

Looks like kids gardening is going to be bigger than ever in 2012, by the looks of all the yowza grow kits marketed to them on the shelves.

Seems the gardening industry has caught wind of the fact that those Gen X and Y consumers they've been trying to reach have kids, and that a good chunk of any disposable income Mommy and Daddy have for gardening is probably going to go toward something they can do with their children. Same goes for the Baby Boomers and their grandkids.

And I don't think it'll just stop at grow kits. After all, Netherlands-based flower auction company FloraHolland just announced the release of its Hello Kitty line of plants, aimed at girls and young women. Now that's marketing MEOW!

Hello Kitty plants

Obviously, the industry also knows that kids will go for anything with a character on it – from breakfast cereal to bandages to toothbrushes and toilet seats.  Hence the Growums garden kits (tagline: "Add a little character to your garden!") retailing for $39.98 at my neighborhood Home Depot. The 50-plus characters - with names like Adam Apple, Duke the Cuke and Elvis Parsley are part of six themed edible gardening kits (pizza, taco, herb, salad, ratatouille and stirfy).

Growums ($39.98 at Home Depot)

And of course, there's an online component at Growums.com, where you can learn about the characters and their gardens, play games, use Growums for fundraisers, follow Growums on Twitter and Facebook and even "track your Growems" (I don't know what this means, since I didn't buy one and you have to enter the UPC code from the kit to find out). I think it's smart marketing - and as the mom of a 4-year-old, I'll know to steer clear of it in Home Depot if she's with me and I don't want to spend the extra cash. Kudos to Bonnie Plants for really thinkin' this one through!

$39.98 a little much for ya? How 'bout the $2.99 "Eco Plant Pals" (also available at Amazon.com). I found as part of a mondo kids' grow kit display in my Wegmans supermarket. These kits, too, feature their own cartoon characters, like Strawberry Sarah, Aloe Alin and Basil Bob:

Eco Plant Pals ($2.99 at Wegmans)

Princess Garden ($14.99 at Wegmans)

Carnivorous Creations ($24.99 at Wegmans)

Looks like "fairy gardening"– that gardening trend in which tiny plants are grown as part of a miniature scene fit for a fairy - has really taken off. I know I saw a lot of fairy gardening stuff on display, at least, at the 2011 Garden Writers Association symposium this past summer in Indianapolis: 

Fairy Triad grow kit ($24.99 at Wegmans)

But the most exciting thing for me personally, as an incurable plant nerd, were all the kits offering the opportunity to grow exotic edibles (well, exotic in my western NY Zone 6ish garden, that is).  baThere were kits for bananas, peanuts, coffee and even pomegranate trees. And as the kid who always wanted to sprout an avocado pit on the windowsill to make my own tree, I'm willing to slap down the $4 or $10 to see if it actually works.

. P

Pomegranate grow kit ($4 at Wegmans)

Sometimes life calls for a little attitude. And you’ll definitely find it in “Tangerine Tango” – Pantone’s 2012 Color of the Year. This “spirited reddish-orange,” just dubbed the new “it” hue by global color authority Pantone, is sure to burn up any of the fog left over from a gloomy economy and – as Pantone says – “provide the energy boost we need to recharge and move forward.”

“Sophisticated but at the same time dramatic and seductive, Tangerine Tango is an orange with a lot of depth to it,” said Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute®. “Reminiscent of the radiant shadings of a sunset, Tangerine Tango marries the vivaciousness and adrenaline rush of red with the friendliness and warmth of yellow, to form a high-visibility, magnetic hue that emanates heat and energy.”

So where can we find this color for our gardens? And how do we use it in the landscape to its fullest? Here are just a few ideas:

Tangerine Tango - Pantone's 2012 Color of the Year

“The reddish-orange blooms of this dark-foliaged canna certainly match Pantone’s “Tangerine Tango,” says Anthony Tesselaar, cofounder and president of Tesselaar Plants, developer of the colorfully foliaged Tropicanna cannas. “What’s more, the backdrop of black, broad leaves makes this color pop even more.”

Tropicanna Black canna bloom

Tesselaar suggests using this color in containers with subtle echoes of the same color: “Not too much with this fiery hue,” he says. “A little goes a long way.”

For example, Tesselaar suggests a hot-hued “thriller-filler-spiller combo,” with Tropicanna Black as the thriller, ornamental peppers as the filler and thread-leaved croton as the spiller:

On her North Coast Gardening blog, California garden designer Genevieve Schmidt suggests a more analogous color grouping: Tropicanna Black  (above) with other outrageous reds like Helianthemum (sunrose) ‘Henfield Brilliant’ and Clianthus puniceus ‘Red’:

Helianthemum 'Henfield Brilliant'

Clianthus punicea 'Red'

Another good plant featuring this fiery orange-red color is Bonfire begonias:

Just one will wake up a whole garden bed:

The orange in this red also makes it pop against a bright blue pot (since orange and blue are opposites on the color wheel):

So, what other plants bring this Pantone color  into the garden? Post a comment and let me know! I'd love to hear about some other color combos starring Tangerine Tango!

In my previous post on Top Garden Trends for 2012, I mentioned how larger ponds are giving way to smaller water features (like this recirculating fountain featuring a hollowed-out boulder, designed by Sharon Coates and Bruce Zaretsky of Zaretsky and Associates design-build firm in Rochester, NY):

Sharon and Bruce also sent me other great images of the latest water features too - as did California garden designer and North Coast Gardening blogger Genevieve Schmidt. I fell so in love with all of them that I decided they needed a post of their own:

Water fountain globe (submitted by Genevieve Schmidt)

Scupper (designed by Zaretsky and Associates)

Rain chain with boulder base (designed by Zaretsky and Associates)

Well, 2011 was another good gardening year … that is … that is, despite apocalyptic storms, wild fires and a dragging and soggy spring.

Here's the dirt from our regional garden bloggers:

 Linn Schlinger (central Virginia)

Here in Virginia we have certainly had a time of it, with swamp fires, earthquakes, hurricanes and then torrential rains with flooding. Many here in the south were beginning to think Mother Nature was mad at us. Our son just got back from Afghanistan for all of this. What a leave time he had. Our property, plants and trees all had a very different look to them after all of these conditions being thrust upon them.

Hurricane Irene damage

One of my Fairy magnolias is still missing, but we found one uprooted and in a stream at the back of our property. The one survived and looks as if nothing  had gone on around it at all. Two lilac trees were uprooted as well as two lilac bushes. Sad, the way they looked.

So what do you do? You just move forward, and that is exactly what we did. The cleanup started and continued for weeks. It got to the point where it was discouraging to see all the damage to so many beautiful, wonderful plants. Then, one morning I went out into the back yard and my heart sang with joy. One black canna and my demolished clematis had little blooms on them. A couple of days later, they opened up and bloomed profusely for us. What a joy! 

Tropicanna Black cannas

Clematis

We are crossing our fingers that many of our other plants will rebound as successfully as these have.  I have attached a couple pictures for you to enjoy. Yup, they are small but I just try to imagine what I would look like if I had been hanging out in the open with Hurricane Irene. Look forward to hearing from you all on the blog next season.

Becky Dziarnowski (Ignacio, Colorado)

The hummingbirds have gone, so winter is just around the corner here. This has been the most eventful spring and summer we can remember in a very long time. All in all, our corner in Southwest Colorado fared better than most, even with a few wild fire scares. My garden became bountiful and remains so today, I seem to harvest a bushel full of produce every evening.  Then the next challenge is what to do with it all!  I never imagined that the garden would do so well after the poor Spring and unseasonal early Summer.  So, for now, it seems that the weather is back on track - let us all hope so!
 
Spring was very disappointing for me, as the early bulbs, and especially my favorites - the daffodils - bloomed for only a few days instead of the week or so that I usually see. Everything seemed to be growing in slow-motion; finally the daffodils bloomed, but each bloom only lasted a few days. I never got the mounds of color I'm used to seeing. Usually the daffodils bloom, (no tulips, as the deer and turkeys love them). Then, while the daffodils are ending their show, the irises and alliums hold the show until the peonies and hostas start to fill in. Next come the roses, Shasta daisies and every other summer bloomer for a wonderful continuum of color all summer long. This year, very few of the fruit trees blossomed and those that did quickly had their blossoms frozen. The summer didn't look like it was going to be favorable, either.
 
Then, to my surprise, partway through summer everything started to pick up and the show began. My Flower Carpet roses were beautiful and are still blooming:

The vegetable garden exploded and I had sunflowers up to 12 feet high:

Now, I savor each day walking through the gardens, welcoming each new bloom. The twilight walk is still my favorite time of day and I'm fully expecting it to last another two weeks before frost comes for a visit. So enjoy each and every bright blossom looking up at you and remember that no matter what was destroyed, Mother Nature also provides us with the hope of renewal each year. So, enjoy it as much as you can.  
  

Shirley Gardner (Boise, Idaho)

Whoa! The summer streaked by so fast I still don’t have some of the spring tasks done. Oh, well … there’s always next year. I think I mentioned in an earlier blog that I had 19 tomato plants and boy! Did we ever have tomatoes – enough to can! Between my daughter and us, we had almost 4 dozen quarts – enough supply the neighbors, family and friends with lots of good eating.

In spite of the very slow, cold, rainy start to the summer, we had a good growing season:

The exception to that might be our cannas. They dragged their heels a bit until the summer weather came around the first part of July. Those Tropicana Blacks are absolutely beautiful and have to be one of my favorites in the garden:

Next year I hope to get them planted earlier in the greenhouse so we’ll have longer to enjoy them when they’re blooming.

I do have to show you all my wonderful brugmansia. I counted 34 blooms on it. Since it’s the only time it has bloomed all summer, I guess it saved it up for one big show:

As things wind down for the season, my obsession with gardening tends to wane just a teeny bit. It’s probably a good thing, because it won’t be long until the frost comes to finish off the garden for this year. 

As swiftly as the last few months have gone, so will the next few. Before we know it, the holidays will be over and it will be time once again to start planning and dreaming about our next year’s gardens. So Happy Thanksgiving and a very Merry Christmas everyone!

Kari Gagner (far northeastern Minnesota)

The highlight of my summer gardening was the beautiful blooms from my Tropicanna plants. My one year old son would point at the flowers and say "pretty! pretty!" I'm definitely looking forward to next summer for their return. Even though it doesn't feel like it now, winter is on it's way. I'll just have to turn to my houseplants until the snow melts!

I recently wrote about some of my favorite new plant intros for 2012, including the new 'Pink Champagne' blueberry that does well in cooler climates. Now here are two different kinds of "fruity" plants – also new for next gardening season!

Introducing Strawberries and Cream and Blueberries and Cream, two yummy-looking-enough-to-eat lacecap hydrangeas serving up clusters of fruity-colored blooms surrounding milky-white centers. Both gift plants, specially bred for long-lasting indoor blooms, will be available this coming spring through Lowe’s, Home Depot and independent garden centers.

The dark-rosy-red-bloomed Strawberries and Cream (available previously in limited distribution) is now readily and widely available, along with a new “flavor” – Blueberries and Cream. Blueberries and Cream, which offers scrumptious-blue flowers for cool-colored refreshment, will be available primarily in the Northeastern U.S. for the 2012 season, with greater distribution planned for 2013.

Both of these gift hydrangeas will bloom for one to two months indoors. If you’re going to plant them outdoors, however, wait till early summer. These plants are specially grown in greenhouses to flower in time for Mother’s Day and can’t take the cooler spring temperatures.

In zones 7 and above (after their initial flowering), Strawberries and Cream and Blueberries and Cream can be planted outdoors in the garden from early summer on for a beautiful show the following year.

If you live in Zone 6 or lower and want to plant them outside for blooms the following year (again, only after their indoor spring flowering), you must give them special care. Treat them as you would your other subtropical or warmer-climate plants, and give them winter protection.

For instance, you can plant them in a spot where they’re screened from freezing winds or – for those who really want to play it safe – dig them up and store them in your garage in a 30-gallon trash bag filled with leaves.

They're not only great as Mother's Day Gifts, but as centerpieces or just as quick pick-me-ups for winter-weary souls in spring.

Want more info?

Blueberries and Cream hydrangea

Strawberries and Cream hydrangea

Yay for Tropicanna Black! This summer, the widely celebrated, purplish-black leaved canna from Tesselaar Plants took top honors at the United Kingdom's largest plant trade show – the Horticultural Trade Association’s National Plant Show. The honor – the Silver Award for Herbaceous Perennials – went to John Woods Nurseries (of Suffolk County, England – one of Tesselaar’s UK growers). 

Also at the show (below), John Woods presented another Tesselaar plant – the Black Tulip magnolia – as a gift to England's Queen Elizabeth!

Congratulations to John  Woods Nurseries and to Tesselaar Plants!

I'm such a plant nerd – new plant introductions always get me so excited. And there were plenty to be found at this year's annual Garden Writers Association symposium, held in Indianapolis.

My personal favorite:

Blueberry 'Pink Champagne'. This happy accident, courtesy of the USDA, has produced a pink blueberry that's especially hardy in colder climates (Zones 4-9). That's perfect for me, since my Rochester, NY garden is Zone 6b. Available next season via Briggs Plant Propagators, this "rabbit-eye" variety with frosty-pink, edible berries takes full sun to part shade and grows 4 to 5 feet high by 5 feet wide. And in fall, it features fabulous red foliage. Design-wise, it's good in mixed borders and massed plantings, but because of blueberries' love of acidic soil, you may want to plant it with other acid-loving plants or grow it in a container with acidified soil.

And here's a list of some others I'm excited about:

Colocasia 'Bikini-tini'. One of the super-funky plants from Plants Nouveau's new Tropicools™ line of zone 6 – Zone 6! – hardy colocasias. "Anyone living in zone 6 and 7 can now reliably leave these planted in the garden each year," says Plants Nouveau. Well, I've stuck mine in the ground and we shall see … I really hope they're right!

Nandina 'Flirt'. As beautiful and breathtaking as the Southern Living Plant Collection's 'Delta Jazz' crapemyrtle was with its hot-pink blooms against burgundy leaves, it's a fraction away from being hardy in my Zone 6b garden. So my eyes quickly turned to 'Flirt' Nandina, a improvement on the Harbour Dwarf Nandina. "'Flirt' holds its red foliage through fall, winter and spring," read the literature. Wowee! And it's hardy in zones 6-10. Again, I wonder if it's a gamble to grow in Zone 6ish landscapes, since its ability to remain evergreen and hold its red color depends on how severely cold it gets. In my area, I'm close to Lake Ontario with lots of snow cover to insulate such plants, especially if I shelter them in a little microclimate of shrubs near the foundation of my house. Yes, I've been burned on this before. But I've been a long-time lover of nandina, and if I find this variety, I may 'flirt' with disaster!