That is a very good question! Last week’s Tropical Plant International Expo was yet another stellar event in their 50 years of shows. So many plants and tropical, houseplant, foliage and interiorscape products, so little time!

Well, a really good place to start is by seeing what other folks picked as their faves. I’ll start with the “Favorite” awards given to the Exhibitor Showcase plants and products and voted on by show attendees.

TPIE’s Favorite New Flowering Plant and Favorite New Foliage Plant were both awarded to Aroid Greenhouses. Anthurium Tricolor won the former …

And Philodendron billietiae Variegated won the latter.

Both are royal plants, as I like to call them. They rule the room they’re in.

The Favorite New Product at the show is the holographic care tag for Flori-Design’s Little Pot of Horrors line of Venus fly traps. Holographs are fun, especially with the kiddos who gobble up these interactive plants. The holograph helps to lure buyers in, and that’s always a good idea. Flori-Design

Apologies for the still image. A photo of a holographic image definitely misses the point. Trust me, it’s cute!

Continuing to lean on the professional folks who made legit picks of plants and products, I’ll now share with you some of the Cool Product winners. The Garden Center Group’s annual Cool Product Awards at TPIE are chosen by a group of garden center folks who make their picks based on how they think they’d sell at their stores. They all walked the show and came to a group meeting with 70 different items! They narrowed the pack down to 15. I’ll share the six plant picks with you today and the rest over the next several issues of Tropical Topics.

Going alphabetically by company …

Dieffenbachia Crocodile, another fabulous plant from Aroid Greenhouses. The item has two unique characteristics: 1) it has an upright stature with the leaves pointing upward, sort of unusual for a dieffenbachia, and 2) speaking of its leaves, that positioning of the leaves shows off the scales or protuberances studding the leaf’s center ridge. The front of the leaves, which you can’t really see unless you turn them over, is smooth. Aroid Greenhouses

Next is Vriesea 8322 from Deroose Plants. This bromeliad has some really cool marbling all along its leaves, and that patterning is stable across the plant. When grown with less fertilizer, the plant is more pink than green. I think that version would be very cool! Deroose Plants

You’ve never seen a bougainvillea like this multi-colored combo from O.F. Nelson & Family Nursery. It’s a multi-liner combo that contains varieties that have similar growing characteristics but different colors. The result is a combo that is a kaleidoscope of colors. I believe I also saw a combo that has a variety with leaf variegation. O.F. Nelson & Family Nursery

Leafjoy H2O Minis from Proven Winners and The Plant Company. We’ve discussed Proven Winners’ foray into the houseplant and tropicals world when they entered the market last year. The H2O product line keeps expanding with several different shapes and sizes. New this year are the glass-vessel-on-a-wire-frame styles that caught my eye. This photo is of the Elkhorn Lake line, and other lines added to this H2O Collection are all named after bodies of water in Virginia. The Plant Company

And both of them are from R&D Nurseries. The first is Alocasia Frydek Variegata with its stunningly marbled-looking arrow-shaped leaves. The variegation holds on the leaves even as they grow and age.

R&D’s other winner is Alocasia Jacklyn. This plant looks unreal! Its deep-green leaves are deeply cut with dark veins. The leaf is thick, shiny and textured, too. It’s a stunner. R&D Nurseries

There are a ton more plants to talk about, and products, too. I’ll be back in the next issue with continuing TPIE coverage!