Fascinated by Fasciation

By John Whipple

In the display gardens just outside the corporate offices at Star® Roses and Plants/Conard-Pyle, we have a number of exciting and unusual plants.  However, we also have a few tried and true varieties with an unusual twist.  You will see some of our Cotinus coggygria ‘Royal Purple’ and if you look closely, you will notice the stems are flattened in some cases, or spiral and curl in odd, random patterns in others.

Examples of fasciation

This distortion is called fasciation.  An occurrence more common than you may expect, fasciation is reported to occur in more than 100 plant species. It can take place in the stems, leaves, flowers, and even fruit (think of a ripe beefsteak tomato) of a plant.  There are a number of plants prized for their fasciation, including fantail willow, which is used in floral arrangements, Cockscomb Celosia, the popular bedding annual, and the Saguaro cactus, which, while it isn’t bought and sold, has one of the most bizarre manifestations of the condition.

Saguaro cactus

The exact cause of fasciation is still not certain and research has shown a large number of variables that are believed to cause the deformity.  It is often thought to be a hormonal change in the plant, brought on by bacteria, fungi, or viruses.  Another option is simply that the bacteria or viruses’ manifestation in the plant results in the contorted display.  Environmental conditions, insect attacks or herbicide damage can also cause similar irregularities in plant tissues.  Finally, it has been shown in species of peas and beans to be a genetic trait.  From a breeding prospective, this means that fasciation could be bred into a plant line (such as the Celosia).  One only has to pause to imagine the intriguing new cultivars that could be possible once we learn more about the fascinating condition.

Examples of fasciation from the Star® Roses & Plants/Conard-Pyle display gardens.

Examples of fasciation from the Star® Roses & Plants/Conard-Pyle display gardens.

Examples of fasciation from the Star® Roses & Plants/Conard-Pyle display gardens.

Hellebore: A Bright Spot in the Winter That Never Ends

By Greg Soles

Looking out my office window this past February was quite depressing, except for these luscious beauties! The bright flowers that adorned these plants brought some sanity to this golfer who is pining for some sign of spring. The great thing is, gardening existed all winter!

I had the good fortune to do some work the past few years with one of the world’s renowned Hellebore breeders, Josef Heuger. He has brought the Helleborus Gold Collection™ to North America over the past few years. His work has been focused on developing hybrids that can bring color to winter gardens November through March. They have also done good work with oriental hybrids in their Spring Promise® collection.

Other breeders are doing work in hellebore breeding and this is offering the gardening enthusiast winter joy across the country. We have watched hellebore thrive in Massachusetts, the Mid-Atlantic States, Texas, Northern California and Pacific Northwest. Heck, my brother’s plants thrive in Pittsburgh. I love getting flowering pictures of Helleborus niger in December from him.

In Europe, hellebore is a tradition. We are just discovering the genus in North America.

Who says you can’t garden in the winter?

A Place for Perennials

By Greg Soles
Perennial Product Manager, Conard-Pyle Co./Star® Roses & Plants

Fall gardens mums are now in their rightful place, the fall retail shelves.

It has bothered me for years when garden mums begin to show up in retail stores in early July and August. When I go back to the early years of my career in the 1980s, consumers would walk down the sidewalk of retail garden centers in mid-June only to be told to come back in the fall for garden mums. Soon, breeders and growers learned how to produce flowering garden mums by shading them and this resulted in seeing fall garden mums on the retail shelves in early July. By fall the flowers were gone.

Around the same time that we began to learn how to flower garden mums early, the fascinating world of perennial gardening began to expand. While perennials flower from spring thaw and into winter’s frosts, most industry perennial trial gardens are exploding with color in the summer months. That is why it drives me crazy to see these fall mums on the retail shelves in July.

Perennials are the bridge that takes gardeners from spring to fall. There are many different varieties of perennials that can spark consumer gardening interest when consumers are bored with petunias and impatiens in late May.

Looking at it objectively, perennial sales are growing in our industry. Growers and retailers need to improve the presentation of perennials in the retail garden centers to improve that retail growth. In a meeting yesterday one of my colleagues quoted a prominent garden center referring to available space in their retail stores when he said: “no bloom…..no room!”

Otto Keil Florist on Long Island began offering a ‘summer-color’ program to their retail customers in the late 1990s. Many of the varieties in this program are perennials. Perennials offer unique flower forms and colors that create high interest in consumers. They are different.

One challenge our industry has is to learn to grow perennials at a high quality standard with color showing at retail. If we look at a seed catalog for professional growers we find recipes that teach growers how to deliver specimen material to consumers. How easy that must be when growing inside warm, cozy greenhouses that have all the bells and whistles that allow us to manipulate environments!

Most perennials are grown outside. Until recently, very few production trials were executed on perennials as they were evaluated for industry release. Many growers still grow perennials in black nursery pots.

As this begins to improve, so will growth in perennial sales in our industry. We are all challenged to get better at this. It is an opportunity to improve our businesses and create more excitement for the gardening public.

I love garden mums, but let’s reduce the quantity we see in retail stores in July and August. Let’s increase the number of consumers walking down our retail sidewalks that time of year, by offering them a great selection of perennials in flower.

Being Social in the Garden

By Kajsa Haracz

What’s better than hanging out in the garden with your friends? That is exactly what Steve, Kyle and I were doing at the Garden2Blog event at P. Allen Smith’s Moss Mountain Farm in the hills of Arkansas in early May.

A lovely porch at P. Allen Smith’s garden home retreat.

We were joined by a group of lively bloggers and sponsor friends. In record heat (already 90 degrees at 9 a.m.), we shared our passion for roses in Allen’s rose garden.

P. Allen Smith leads the bloggers on a tour.

But being social in the garden is about more than a day of fun with your friends. The relationships we build in social media need to be nurtured and cared for, much like a new plant. Therefore, I was excited to introduce Steve and Kyle to some of our online friends, including Dee Nash, Bren Haas, Shirley Bovshow, and Susan Cohan. Conversations centered on new roses, rose care and stories of success and beauty.

The Garden2Blog event was a celebration of being social, and how it can go beyond your iPhone and computer screen. It was about friends sharing their passion for gardening.

Steve Hutton talks roses.

As we said good-bye (just after Johnny Cash made an appearance), we made plans to stay in touch using #gardenchat, this blog , Pinterest, Facebook, and the many other great social gardening outlets. We will continue to be social­, each in our own garden—sharing and engaging—until we meet again in a garden near you.

P. Allen Smith’s rose garden.

Guest blog by Kajsa Haracz (@kharacz), a novice gardener but seasoned PR pro.