Ball Publishing has two free webinars coming up this week:

Best IPM Practices for Piercing & Sucking Insects
Tuesday, June 16
1:00 p.m. Eastern/12:00 p.m. Central

Jen Browning and Peggy Clanton of BASF will be discussing the management of aphids, whiteflies, mealybug and scale insects on ornamentals, being in close contact with your target pests, seasonality and timing, and the best approaches to get your IPM to really deliver. They’ll also talk about how to integrate biologicals and conventional tools to make both work better.

Sign up at www.growertalks.com/webinars

Darwin Digital Days LIVE Webinar
Wednesday, June 17
3:00 p.m. Eastern/2:00 p.m. Central

Join two guest experts for almost two hours of everything perennial! Paul Pilon of Perennial Solutions Consulting and editor of the Perennial Pulse e-newsletter will discuss how you can use temperature, irrigation, fertility and plant growth regulators to hold crops and maintain plant quality through unusually late springs. Paul will also share numerous fertility, insect, disease and other cultural issues he’s come across and provide tips on how to recognize them and deal with these issues once they're present.

Next up will be W. Garret Owen, an Assistant Extension Professor of Floriculture, Greenhouse and Controlled Environments at the University of Kentucky. Garret will give you the latest research on perennial propagation, including supplemental lighting and rooting hormones.

Sign up for this special event HERE.

And speaking of the Darwin Digital Days webinar, just a reminder that this event is on now, June 15–19, with tons of online content for you to enjoy. Check out their variety and cultural videos, among other online info at www.darwinperennials.com/digitaldays. Also, you can sign up for daily email reminders so you don’t miss a thing!

Here’s a snippet from Ellen Wells’ Buzz! newsletter—you know she’s always got the details on horticultural happenings:

You know what I like about Smith Gardens’ 6^th annual New Product Showcase? They’re giving you the option of coming on a live tour or to see their trial gardens virtually. Cool, eh? “2020 has asked us to change, adapt and work together,” says their email announcing the tours. “And we are ready!”

Since local regulations in Washington are prohibiting group of more than 10, they’ve expanded their usual one-day event to a four-day event with multiple tour times. Those tours will take place on June 29 – July 2, four times each day (8, 10, 12 and 2). Space is limited for the IRL tours, so email them at Trials@SmithGardens.com to reserve your space.

For the virtual tour, they’ll be recording videos of each variety they are growing and will premier those videos in early July. Can’t keep a good trial down, can you?

I'm sharing this bit of info from our resident perennial expert, Paul Pilon, author of  Perennial Pulse: 

In light of current events, the Perennial Plant Association (PPA) has postponed the 2020 Perennial Symposium, which was going to be held in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, this summer until July 26-30, 2021. Spoiler alert: the 2022 Perennials Symposium is going to be held in Niagara Falls, Ontario. Stay tuned or visit www.perennialplant.org for details on these events as they become available.

 PPA: Virtual Edition: New Ways to Communicate

The PPA also recently announced it will be holding its first virtual event called PPA: Virtual Edition, on June 17, 2020. The fast-paced premier webinar titled "New Ways to Communicate" is presented in partnership with GardenComm, and features five dynamic experts who each will share great communication and marketing ideas in quick, 15-minute sessions. The speakers are:

• Jessica DeGraaf, Proven Winners
• C.L. Fornari, The Garden Lady
• Jennifer Polanz, Green Profit & Inside Grower
• Jo Ellen Meyers Sharp, Write for You! & GardenComm President
• David Wilson, Overdevest Nurseries

It all begins at 3:00 p.m. EST on June 17 and includes a private garden tour and a happy hour (limited tickets available). Click HERE for event info and registration.

PPA Virtual Edition: Best of the Best Perennials

On June 24, 2020, the PPA will be hosting their second virtual event. In this webinar, five perennial experts will choose their favorite Perennial Plant of the Year (PPOY) winners. They’ll talk about what features they like and how they use and maintain these great perennials. The speakers are:

• Steve Aitken, Fine Gardening
• Richard Hawke, Chicago Botanic Garden
• Holly Scoggins, AmericanHort
• Paul Westervelt, Saunders Brothers, Inc.
• Allyson Hoffmeyer, Hoffie Nursery, Inc.

Attendees will be taken on a virtual tour of the PPOY display garden at Hoffie Nursery. There will also be a Happy Hour for a limited number of people immediately following the presentations and tour.

This virtual event starts at 3:00 p.m. EST on June 24. Click HERE for event details.

Cross this one off your summer calendar and move it to spring—GreenTech Americas is moving from August 2020 to March 16 -18 2021. Per their press release, the current health situation in Mexico, due to COVID-19, does not provide the optimal conditions to organize GreenTech’s show—a situation many shows have found themselves in this summer. To allow for international travelers and face-to-face meetings, they have decided to reschedule for March 2021.

As a bit of background on this show, GreenTech Americas in Mexico is the first regional event of GreenTech, an international meeting place for horticultural technology. Fifty percent of the exhibitors are international and visitors are expected to come from all over the world. Why have the show in Mexico? The organizers explain that the agricultural market in Mexico has a lot of potential (and is a major supplier of vegetables and flowers to the United States), while also being an important market for international companies.

Sounds exciting! I’ll keep you updated on details for this event as they are posted, so stay tuned. For more info on the show, visit https://www.greentech.nl/americas/.

The International Association of Horticultural Producers (AIPH), in association with FloraCulture International (FCI), will be presenting an online conference entitled “Recovery from Crisis – the future for Ornamentals.”

Growers, breeders, traders, retailers, manufacturers, associations and trade media are all invited to participate in this global online conference, to be held live on September 15, 2020.

Their stated goal is to help the ornamental horticulture industry recover from the effect of the Coronavirus pandemic. To do so, AIPH is bringing together leading global experts to provide their ideas and guidance for the future.

The conference’s first session will address the issue of crisis management with speakers on handling crisis, business and investment implications, the impact on future mergers and acquisitions and understanding the impact on the end consumer.

The focus will then move to the cut flowers industry, with views from major supermarket retailers, florists, traders, online sales companies and flower auction markets. A panel of grower representatives from key producing countries will debate the impact of the pandemic on the sector and what needs to happen to create a more resilient supply chain.

The third session will focus on plants and trees, with further discussion from leading growers, retailers, and breeders on how to take the sector forward. The conference will close with an international panel to debate ways of stimulating market demand and how to grow out of the crisis into a brighter future.

Confirmed speakers thus far include:

• Dr Charlie Hall, Ellison Chair in International Floriculture, Texas A&M University
• Carin van Huet, Director of Food & Agribusiness, Rabobank, the Netherlands
• Frank de Hek, Partner at Oaklins, the Netherlands
• Steven van Schilfgaarde, CEO Royal FloraHolland, the Netherlands
• Craig Musson, Managing Director, WAFEX, Australia
• Michiel de Haan, CEO, Royal Lemkes, the Netherlands
• Jan-Dieter Bruns, Managing Director, Bruns-Pflanzen Germany

For more information and to register, visit http://aiph.org/72nd-annual-congress-virtual-conference/.