The Year of...

Ellen C. Wells

National Garden Bureau (NGB) announced in September its featured crops for their “Year of” program and I like them all. The “Year of” program for six categories of plants exists to help market genera that are easy to grow, have lots of genetic diversity with the chosen genera and offer a lot of new breeding. In other words, the “Year of” program generates interest and sales for these crops.

Those six crop categories and the genera promoted are:

• Bulb—Year of the Crocus
• Annual—Year of the Impatiens
• Edible—Year of the Hot Pepper
• Houseplant—Year of the Ficus
• Perennial—Year of the Sedum
• Flowering Shrub—Year of the Azalea

A special cherry-on-top bonus of NGB’s “Year of” programs are the beautiful illustrations they create for each category. 

Beginning November 1, NGB will have a bunch of new photos for all of these genera provided by its members on its website at ngb.org. These are downloadable for use by breeders, brokers, seed companies, growers, retailers and garden communicators for use in their marketing initiatives. NGB will also have PDFs of fact sheets, flyers, handouts, signs, posters, etc. Use these to market non-branded, non-specific varieties to consumers.

You’ll want to access those files ASAP and get your marketing plans squared away by the end of the year because NGB will start its consumer publicity of the “Year of” crops beginning in January! GP