Over 300 people attended the Sawaya Garden Trials’ open house in Simcoe, Ont. this past July, with more visitors in the days that followed. This is the 19th year of the Sawaya Garden Trials, and every year I learn something new. Members of a series (families) can sometimes have the same performance but different colours. Other times, the families are only a collection of different colours of a genus under a certain commercial name, which is similar to a family of adopted kids. It is important to know if a genus is a true family or not for the following reasons: If you are growing a cultivar (colour) for the first time and you assume it has the same habit as the rest of the family, then you may be surprised by a totally different product that can sometimes end up being unsellable. When creating combinations of the same family (genera) and assuming they have the same response, you may be surprised with either different growth vigour and/or habits or different flowering times. In our trials, we usually have the old cultivars along with the new addition(s), so they can be compared to the older series in growth habit. Lessons learned There is important information that everyone can take away from the trials. For how long in the season do the plants look good? Are they only good in June, or are they great the whole season? It’s important to learn about the flowering power and pattern of each cultivar – that is what I call flower stages. How long do the flowers last and how fast do they regenerate? Hibiscus loses its flower in one or two days, but flower regeneration is almost instantaneous with multiple generations. Some petunia varieties go to sleep after the rain and are full of botrytis right after, whereas other petunias are not affected by the rain and the plants keep on flowering in addition to being self-cleaning. The geranium is one of the most important cultivars. It is great if grown in full sun without any rain on the flowers. If the […]
Source: www.greenhousecanada.com
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