This one’s for you, allied hort companies! If you have debuted a new product this year and would like retailers to see it a bit more closely, you’ll be glad to know that Jen Polanz is putting together a new product feature for the October issue of Green Profit.

If you have anything to share—maybe some new fertilizer or a line of new hand tools or some lovely pottery or anything horticulturally related—drop her a line at jpolanz@ballpublishing.com.

Whew! I put that notice first so I wouldn’t forget about it! Now onward with some news.

You’ve all heard of Decowraps, if not used and/or sold Decowraps products. The news about that company this week is that Palladin Consumer Retail Partners, a private equity firm with a good deal of experience investing in and building leading retail and consumer brands, has invested in Decowraps. The partnership between Palladin and Decowraps’ CEO and found Steven Tchira, will provide the company with resources to expand and grow in the floral packaging marketplace.

Palladin has had a fair bit of success with partnering with other companies to expand their positions. Names like InMotion Entertainment, Things Remembered, Jamba Juice and Restoration Hardware ring a bell, right? Palladin’s CEO Mark Schwartz and managing director Anders Petersen along with other operations folks will work with Decowraps to up their game in marketing, financials, organizational development and the like to get the company to the next level.

Like so many other shows this year, the Farwest Show is not taking place. But that doesn’t mean the show’s New Varieties Showcase isn’t happening. It’s all online, of course. Sponsored by Hip Labels, folks who stop by the online New Varieties Showcase will see 39 new plants submitted by 14 different growers and breeders.

You can even vote on your favorites. But this time around, rather than being limited in how long you get to examine the new varieties, you’ll have nearly the whole month of August to check them out and vote for the ones that tickle your fancy. What will you see? New colors, a different form of a plant, maybe even some disease resistance.

You can see all 39 new varieties HERE. Vote for up to three of your favorites up until August 28. People’s Choice Awards will be given to the top three vote-getters.

What’s the incentive to do so? Five participating voters will be randomly selected to win a free all-access pass to the 2021 Farwest Show (August 18-20). At $199 per pass, that’s a pretty sweet prize.

Metasequoia glyptostroboides is my favorite deciduous conifer—and my go-to botanical name to speak to impress my friends. It's a great tree! About a month ago, I saw a dawn redwood newly planted as a street tree—just a few feet from a building! I even stopped traffic to gawk at it. I’m interested in seeing that tree’s progress.

So when Plants Nouveau's Plant of the Week email came into my inbox featuring a new dawn redwood variety called Soul Fire, I was curious to read all about it. And what do you know? According to the information, dawn redwoods are being specified for street trees by urban foresters because they can survive the trauma the urban environment (specifically the soils) can throw at it.

Soul Fire was selected by Andy Schenck, owner of Sam Brown’s Wholesale Nursery in Pennsylvania. Comparing Soul Fire to another popular selection, Ogon, Soul Fire is much more yellow and doesn’t fade or burn in full sun. And the foliage remains fully yellow through summer while other selections fade to green. Speaking of its foliage, Soul Fire’s shortened internodes create a fuller and denser look, too.

Where can you get it? You can get liners from Hans Nelson and Son and finished plants from Sam Brown’s Wholesale Nursery.

Breaking legislative news this week concerns the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program and the additional commodities added to it. Here’s colleague Jen Zurko’s take on the topic:

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced in August that additional commodities—which now includes horticulture and nursery products—are covered by the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP) in response to over 1,700 public comments and data. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is extending the deadline to apply for the program to September 11 and producers with approved applications will receive their final payment.

AmericanHort and other industry organizations have been working diligently on getting horticulture included in the program and their efforts have paid off.

Craig Regelbrugge, Vice President of Advocacy and Government Relations for AmericanHort, said in a statement: “AmericanHort extends our sincere appreciation to the USDA for working with us to provide meaningful nursery and floriculture grower relief. For countless horticultural producers, the effects of the coronavirus’ sudden closure of markets during our peak selling season risked destroying businesses across the supply chain. We are happy to report Secretary Sonny Perdue and Under Secretary Bill Northey responded with understanding to help the industry successfully navigate the pandemic by expanding eligibility to this program.”

The program, funded through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Stability (CARES) Act and the Commodity Credit Corporation, provides direct assistance payments to eligible commodities for which significant losses occurred due to pandemic-related market disruption.

USDA collected comments and supporting data for consideration of additional commodities through June 22, 2020. Nursery crops and flowers are eligible for CFAP, which includes everything potted in floriculture, grown in a greenhouse or outside, plus cut flowers and cut greens.

Thanks, JZ! Now that nursery and floriculture crops are eligible, there is a lot to know about how you can utilize the CFAP. Luckily, AmericanHort has a webinar for that! The webinar features Matthew Farrell of K Coe Isom and will include a Q&A period. The webinar is available to AmericanHort and green industry members. Sign up for the August 17, 1 p.m. EDT webinar HERE. And if you can’t make that time, register anyway. You’ll be sent a link to the recorded version.

We may be able to remove the word “holiday” from holiday lights. That’s if what American Holiday Lights reports is correct. The Chicagoland lighting company says its backyard and outdoor lighting installation services have increased 19% this year. Why? It’s likely COVID-related, with more folks staying home and attempting to create a festive outdoor atmosphere.

And then there’s the lighting technology making year-round lighting popular, too. The RGB LED lights can change color, allowing homeowners to use the same strand of lights for different holidays. Go from orangey fall and Halloween lighting to a Christmas-appropriate color scheme without changing the strands.

Some of your bigger garden centers do have lighting departments as part of their landscape divisions. Maybe it’s time for you to shed more light on this possibility for yourself.

Another nursery is joining Bower & Branch, the network of U.S. growers, providers and garden centers. And that nursery is Willoway Nurseries, based in Avon, Ohio. The move will be immediate and Willoway will begin to fill online orders for much of the eastern U.S. as soon as they get them.

"Willoway's decision to partner with Bower & Branch is aligned with our strategic direction to grow our online presence in addition to expanding our container tree offering,” says Willoway’s owner and operator Tom Demaline. “Their online presence, in conjunction with their IGC network, will allow us to take our container tree business to the next level." Willoway will be a big help in engaging landscape professionals online, as well. Through 2021 and 2022, Bower & Branch will make available the widest range of SKUs online to landscapers and consumers all over the country.

The Willoway Nurseries farm encompasses approximately 550 acres of field production and 450 acres for container growing, including 32 acres of climate-controlled greenhouses.

I’m not talking about a real fight. I’m talking about the popular Netflix series, “The Big Flower Fight,” a show that pits 10 pairs of florists, sculptors and garden designers against each other in a new garden sculpture challenge weekly.

Terra Nova’s involvement includes supplying four of the breeding company’s heuchera varieties for a challenge that asked contestants to create a display using primarily evergreen plants. The heuchera varieties the contestants used were the bright-red Fire Alarm, umber-colored Marmalade, black-leaved Obsidian and cherry-coral Paprika.

Contestants Sarah Campbell and Jordan Marx used their supply of the four heuchera varieties to create a cap for a giant evergreen gnome.

I haven’t seen the show but from the looks of this creation, I’m certainly compelled to see what other fabulous creations these garden Gauguins have created!