Did you go to Cultivate’22 in Columbus, Ohio, last week? If you did, you may have been surprised to see as many tropical- and houseplant-related items as you did. And if you didn’t, you maybe missed out on seeing some new products that fit nicely in our category.

But wait! You didn’t miss them completely because it’s my job to tell you all about them. My main source of new or new-to-some tropically related plants and products was the Retailer’s Choice Awards, organized by The Garden Center Group’s Danny Summers. Danny wrangled a number of garden center owners to tour the trade show floor and pick items that they thought were worthy of featuring in their own stores. A total of 15 product received the annual Retailer’s Choice Award recognition, and in my mind, six of them are appropriate for inclusion in this here newsletter.

Aroid Greenhouses is no stranger to the TPIE Cool New Product Awards and they can now say they have a Retailer’s Choice Award. It was given to Aroid for its Monstera obliqua, a unique form of monstera that's been described as “more holes than leaf.” It’s an extremely rare plant, probably because it takes 12 to 14 months for one leaf to fully form. www.aroidgreenhouses.com.

Dümmen Orange may have just gotten into the houseplant game, but they're already winning awards for items they carry in their Welcome to the Jungle houseplant program. Their Delosperma Gherkin (AKA pickle plant) received the award for this touchable, fuzzy foliage that resembles pickles. Mounding and trailing, it’s a great item for a basket. Bonus: It has small yellow flowers on occasion. www.dummenorange.com.

Gardenworld-Growing Colors/2 Plant received an award for the first-ever hardy (to Zone 5!) colocasia. It’s called Polargreen and features green leaves with pink stems. It tops off at 3- to 5-ft. tall. Interestingly, it doesn't produce a bulb. Plant life is fascinating. www.gardenworldinc.com.

Another non-stranger to the Cool New Products Awards, Northland Floral’s time at Cultivate’22 netted them a Retailer’s Choice Award for its Hawaiian Palm (Brighamia insignis). This item can only be found in the wilds of Hawaii’s Kauai Island. It’s become nearly extinct thanks to difficulties of natural cultivation, but it’s been successfully produced through seed and tissue culture propagation. Interestingly, its leaves fall off once a year, leaving some scarring on the trunk that's much like an external growth ring. These are fairly easy to take care of and will produce yellow star-shaped flowers that last up to several weeks. www.northlandfloral.com.

Those show-floor scouring retailers also picked some hardgoods products that are in the houseplant and tropicals category. Those are:

Assorted Bamboo from the folks at Bamboo Supply Company. The judges loved all the shapes and sizes of the different bamboo items. The foliage category utilizes bamboo for a number of potted crops—for trellises, stakes and so forth—so all of Bamboo Supply’s offerings are items you should check out. The judges especially liked the 100% Natural Plant Tag Holder, which is simply a solid round bamboo stake with a notch to securely hold tags. www.bamboosupply.net.

The folks at We the Wild Plant Care took home their first Retailer’s Choice Award. I’ve mentioned these folks before after they exhibited at Floriexpo. Aside from being an organic plant food and protective spray, the judges thought the packaging itself was a real winner, too, because it has a clean look to it. www.wethewild.us. 

Stay tuned to the next edition of Tropical Topics for some of the other plants and products that caught my eye.

Another bit of news out of Cultivate was the announcement of the 2023 “Year of the” plants program from the folks at National Garden Bureau. The “Year of the” program has six different categories, and while the vegetable or perennial categories may not be your tropical cup of tea, the houseplant category certainly is.

Okay, so I won’t keep you on the edge of your seat any longer. NGB’s 2023 “Year of the” plant for the houseplant category is the orchid! Hey, we’ve got those. And plenty of them!

The aim of the “Year of the” program is to choose and highlight crops that are easy to grow, that are genetically diverse and that have a ton of new breeding that can be showcased. NGB goes to great lengths to promote all of the “Year of the” crops to the consumer media, as well as to consumers directly via NGB webinars, so demand for these crops does increase!

Promotion to consumer media begins in January and as such NGB suggests breeders, brokers growers and garden centers start incorporating the “Year of the” plants—in this case, orchids—into your marketing for 2023. As of November 1, you’ll be able to download photos, fact sheets, flyers, signage, posters, presentation and all the marketing support around the “Year of the” crops from the NGB website.

My “man in the field” University of Hawaii professor emeritus Richard Criley sent me the following ARTICLE about the world’s most expensive houseplants. Another article on ridiculously pricey plants though? Not quite. This article delves into the devilishness that lurks in the houseplant trade: the online scams, the selling of barely growable nodes, the outright plant stealing from public institutions, the intentional mislabeling, even gassing leaves to produce not-natural coloring.

As with any dark-sided consumer-level article I read nowadays, I was expecting some sort of ray of hope as the piece ended. Instead, the last sentence was, “We just need to look out for one another.” I’d add, too, to be wary if someone was trying to sell you a bridge.