Overton, Texas — If you want to select for hardy bedding plants,
forget New York; think East
Texas.
“If they can
make it here, they can make it anywhere,” says John Antonelli, a Michigan-based
representative with Proven Winners, a company that sells to retail garden
centers across North America.
Antonelli was
among approximately 180 international seed company representatives,
professional growers and Master Gardeners attending the 2011 East Texas
Horticultural Field Day held in June at Overton.
“The reason I’m
here today is to see what the real world is like, out here in East
Texas,” Antonelli says.
Dr. Brent
Pemberton, Texas AgriLife Research horticulturist, started testing bedding
plants and ornamentals at the Texas AgriLife Research and Extension Center
in 1994 with about 100 entries. By 2011, the number of entries had grown to
more than 400, and the East Texas bedding
plant industry has expanded as well, he says.
“It’s
approximately a $500-million industry,” Pemberton says. “In this part of the
state, the industry stretches from this area over to the Dallas/Fort Worth area. We
probably have about $100 million of ornamental production in that area as well.
We do these trials to provide information to growers, but also to consumers, so
they can make better choices in the plants they grow.”
As in recent
years, the 2011 trials included thousands of square feet of plots of purple,
pink, red and white flowers. There were new varieties of geranium, trailing
petunias, verbena, angelonia, begonias, lantana, gomphrena and lobelia,
Pemberton says. And there was continuing emphasis on vinca, a plant widely used
in Southern landscapes.
Wayne Pianta,
with Pan American Seed Co., an international plant breeding company, was
another who makes the Overton field day a “must-attend” entry on his calendar,
he says.
“We’re here to
see how a lot of our varieties perform in comparison with those from other
breeding companies,” Pianta says. “This is one of the important field trials
where we evaluate varieties and see how they perform in the extremely hot
summers of Texas.”
Sue Adee and Ann
Pattullo, Smith County Master Gardeners, also are regular attendees, but for
different reasons, they say.
“I have come
every year since the trials began,” Adee says. “I make selections for our Ideal Garden
at the Tyler Rose Garden.”
“This is the day
I look forward to every year,” Pattullo says. “I really make note of everything
I like.”
Both Adee and
Pattullo, along with many other regional Texas Master Gardeners, volunteer to
help with the labor-intensive aspect of the field trials, donating hundreds of
hours of labor planting and tending the plots.
Pemberton noted
the trials would not be possible – at least not in their current size – without
volunteer work from Master Gardeners from Smith and Rusk counties, volunteer
organizations administered by the Texas AgriLife Extension Service.
George Hull, of
New Plant Introductions, a Phoenix-based plant breeding company, says the field
day is a kind of a ‘watering-hole,’ where he can meet with other people in the
business nationwide, including, of course, competitors.
“(We want) to
see how our plants are comparing with everyone else’s – obviously,” Hull says.
This year, Hull was particularly
interested, he says, in how his new line of Tecoma would do. Tecoma is an
evergreen flowering shrub more popular in semi-arid climates, and a first-time
entry in the trials.
“There are about
18 species, but basically, the ones available here have all been just yellow (
blooms),” he says. “I wanted (to breed) something that’s manageable in size,
down to about three or four feet, and has some other colors.”
Some retailers
also traveled across several states to attend the field day.
Doug Welty,
director of specialty marketing at Cottage Farms, traveled from Mobile, Alabama,
to look for particularly hardy varieties.
“We have a
unique part of our business where we sell plants directly to the consumer via
QVC (the televised home-shopping network),” he says. “All of our merchandise is
shipped directly to the homeowner.”
Welty says he
not only has to select plants with great genetics that will perform well for
his customers, he must also select those that are tough enough to survive being
shipped across country.
Pemberton says,
“Some plants do well – even thrive – under Texas heat and sometimes droughty summers.
Others do not, and it’s important for both amateur garden enthusiasts and those
who develop and market new varieties to find out which is the case before they
make substantial investments.”
To see still photos of many of the varieties at the 2011 East Texas Horticultural Field Days,
visit the AgriLife Today Flikr photostream and search for ‘bedding plant’.
