The future all-star cast of perennials is lining up and will be revealed at the California Summer Trials (CAST). The summer trials will be held Wednesday, June 23 to Sunday, June 27, 2021. There will be eight locations spread across central and northern California where the new introductions will make their industry debuts.

After taking a year off, the future perennial celebrities and their agents are anxiously awaiting to show off their stuff at this summer’s new venue. Future perennial all-stars from Benary, Darwin Perennials, Dümmen Orange, Green Fuse Botanicals, Kieft Seed, PlantHaven, Syngenta, ThinkPlants and Pacific Plug & Liner will be featured at the trials.

Green Fuse Botanicals' Veronica Dispay at the 2016 California Spring Trials.

I invite you to attend CAST if you’re ready, willing and able to visit the trials in California this June. Needless to say, these venues will only be open if allowed by local ordinances and are operating by appointment only. You’ll need to make reservations for each site individually. Event and registration details can be found at growertalks.com/CaliforniaTrials.

Over the years, we’ve learned that Terra Nova Nurseries is a reliable source of great new perennial introductions. Here are a few recent introductions that grabbed my attention:

Helleborus North Star Garnet Frills

Helleborus North Star Garnet Frills is a great new cultivar with beautiful ruby-laced flowers with red veins on brilliant white petals. Garnet Frills is an early bloomer with an exceptional flower count. This makes a great container for early season sales. Hardy to Zone 4.

Leucanthemum Mt. Hood

Not only am I a fan of shasta daisies, but love daisies with double flowers. Terra Nova’s new Leucanthemum Mt. Hood surely is a winner in my book. Mt. Hood has large, double flowers comprised of ice crystal-like petals. It has a perfect mounded 16-in. habit and produces tons of flowers throughout the entire season. Each layer of new blooms covers the previous ones. This results in an extended season bloomer with a great appearance and landscape performance. Hardy to Zone 4.

Echinacea Sunny Days Ruby

Did I mention that I love double flowers? It seems like Terra Nova is targeting me with their breeding program and introductions. All kidding aside, their new Echinacea Sunny Days Ruby is a wonderful new cultivar. It develops over-sized double ruby-colored flowers held atop strong, stout stems. Although it's very floriferous and showy, Sunny Days Ruby is very rugged and offers strong garden performance. Hardy to Zone 4.

It seems like aphids magically appear and greet us just as we begin our shipping season or moving plants to the retail locations. As cute as they may be, they're unwelcomed guests and should be managed before the plants reach the consumer level.

One of the interesting things about aphids is, unlike most insects that lay eggs, female aphids give live birth to young nymphs as shown here. These nymphs mature in seven to 10 days and begin giving birth to their own offspring. Their ability to have offspring so quickly is one reason aphids creep up on growers unexpectedly. This and the fact that each female is capable of producing 50 to 200 nymphs in her one-month lifespan.

Aphids can be controlled on an ongoing basis using biological control agents, such as lacewing larvae (Chrysoperla carnea), parasitic wasps (Aphidios colemani and others) and beneficial fungus (Beauveria bassiana).

If neonicotinoid insecticides can be used, spray applications of acetamiprid, dinotefuran, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam can provide several weeks of control. Many of these can be drenched to provide up to two months of control.

When neonicotinoids aren't a possibility, I find spray applications of afidopyropen, flonicamid, flupyradifurone, pymetrozine and spirotetramat each provide about 30 days of control. Consider rotating between these products at monthly intervals during the growing season.

If you find yourself in a situation where you need a quick knockdown, I like to apply the combination of cyfluthrin and imidacloprid where neonicotinoids can be applied or afidopyropen when neonics aren't an option.

Producing a superior liner requires the ability to produce an excellent root system. Ellepots are widely used by propagators to grow a well-rooted liner. Recently, the folks at Ellepot have taken their system one step further towards building the best root systems possible with the development of Air Trays.

Air Trays are designed to hold the paper Jumbo Ellepots and engineered to provide young plants with optimal air circulation and drainage. Additionally, they provide conditions for great air pruning, which aides root development and prevents circling and girdling of the roots. They're available in a range of sizes from 50-mm/32-cell trays to large 120-mm/6-cell trays. Air Trays help growers improve their production efficiency and optimize handling. Click HERE to learn about Air Trays.

To further help growers, they've also developed Air Tray Racks, which allows growers to minimize the cost associated with cutting, moving and planting their Air Trays. The Air Tray Racks also promotes proper air circulation and complements the Air Tray system nicely. Click HERE to learn about Air Tray Racks.

In their efforts to continue distributing information to home gardeners and to support the 15 to 20 million new gardeners gained because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Garden Bureau (NGB) is launching the “Ask the Experts” Consumer Webinar series.

The webinar series runs from April through early November. Each biweekly event will focus on a specific class or type of plant. There are currently 15 “Ask the Expert” sessions scheduled and several of them cover various perennials. The topics I thought would interest you the most are:

Questions obtained from NGBs extensive social media platforms will help guide each presentation and discussion. An expert panel comprised of NGB breeder members will be on hand to field these questions. For example, experts from Bailey Nurseries, Proven Winners ColorChoice Shrubs, and Star Roses and Plants will be on the panel for the first event, “Hydrangeas.”

Each session will be recorded and posted on NGB’s YouTube channel and website if you’re not able to attend. The webinars are FREE. Feel free to attend just one or the entire series. Visit ngb.org/great-garden-webinars for registration and event information.

Let’s keep and grow the millions of new gardeners we obtained last year. Feel free to share these events with your customers.

Have you ever thought about how when cultural issues arise that they most often occur when we forgot to practice the basics? The basics or fundamentals of growing plants are so important. That’s why when I saw the University of Florida was offering “Greenhouse 101” as part of its 2021 Greenhouse Training Online Courses, I jumped at the opportunity to let you know about it.

Greenhouse 101 is a great introductory course teaching the underlying horticultural science of plant growth. It covers plant parts and their functions, photosynthesis and growth, and numerous important topics like irrigation and plant nutrition. This four-week online course starts on May 31, 2021.

Then, each month thereafter, a different course will be offered. Here’s the course schedule:

The four-week, award-winning online training sessions are offered by the University of Florida IFAS Extension in English and Spanish. There are eight learning modules and participants will receive a personalized certificate of completion when completing the entire program.

This is a great, cost-effective program to provide training to up-and-coming growers. Click HERE to learn more about this training and WATCH THIS VIDEO for course descriptions.