This year’s Cultivate’25 trade show had a bunch of items that you as houseplant and tropical growers and retailers (and lovers) would totally benefit from knowing about.

Let’s start with the ones that received The Garden Center Group’s Retailers Choice Awards, of which there are two. Both are from the Proven Winners’ line of plants and products.

Caladium Heart to Heart Midnight Oil. I saw this plant on a tour of the Proven Winners booth first thing as the show opened and knew it was a winner. The leaf’s surface literally looked like an oil slick, but it’s all leaf! Nearly black, this caladium blends deep green and red tones on arrow-shaped leaves. The “oil slick” looks like it’s moving, too, with its wavy leaf margins. As a caladium it grows in shade, but Midnight Oil is at its darkest when in direct sunlight.

Taking a photo of a shiny black plant is hard! It's chillingly dark in person!

Climb-itt Climbing Poles, Stakes, Wire and Clips. This is from Proven Winners’ leafjoy division. We’ve talked about these products before, and they’ve also won a Cool Product Award (similar to a Retailers Choice Award, also a GCG award) at TPIE. As a reminder, these are plant supports made from elephant grass and potato skins, and while they last for years indoors, they begin to break down in a landfill or even compost pile I would imagine. What’s news here—at least for me—is the really nice retail display. Everything your houseplant parents are looking for to support their plant babies, all in one spot.

Leafjoy had a bunch of new items to share. The collection is called Terraform Terrariums and it comes in three different sizes. They’ll be changing out the vessels and the planting recipes inside now and again. What that means is you’ll always have a “new” product in an existing collection; i.e. it’s not the same terrarium all the time. And that is just what houseplant fans are looking for. I somehow did not take a photo of all three sizes, but here is the large version.

Also on the horizon from leafjoy for the coming months:

New dish gardens are in progress. Again, the containers will change, giving you and end consumers something new on a continual basis.

Shine-itt and Feed-itt are all-natural products to shine and feed houseplants, just as their names imply. And they smell good, or at least the Shine-itt does if my nose recollects correctly.

The Feed-itt bottle is similar yet different coloring. 

They’ve named Hoya Endless Cascades Shining Sea Star as their 2026 National Houseplant of the Year. Get your orders in and take advantage of their strong and effective promotions.

The folks at Rosy Soil were excited to tell me all about their two new houseplant-appropriate potting soils. In fact, they are very specific with these soils as one is the Orchid Mix and the other is the Aroid Mix.

Let’s start with the Orchid Mix. In addition to biochar, which is standard with all Rosy Soil products, it container big pieces of pine bark fines, which help maximize drainage and orchid root happiness. Also in the formulation are mycorrhizae, worm castings, compost, pumice and sand.

The Aroid Mix is also super-chunky and is meant to recreate the ideal conditions these epiphytes live in when out in the wild. Chad Massura, Rosy’s founder, told me this well-draining mix is really good for folks who tend to overwater (I shyly raise my hand). It has all of the Orchid Mix ingredients except for the sand.

Oh, and by the way, the Orchid and Aroid Mixes both have biochar made from pecan shells. Rosy’s wonderful Kimber-Lee Dwyer told me that this type of biochar has a more porous structure, which improves air flow and oxygen availability for plant roots, and that is a super-important characteristic for epiphytic plants.

The Danish company Pindstrup is out with a new formulation for tropical and houseplant growers. They developed TropiGrow specifically for bromeliad growers, but turns out other non-bromeliad plants love it and thrive in it just as well. Most tropicals want high moisture levels but don’t want to be soggy in the roots. TropiGrow does that. 

But why do bromeliads and bromeliad growers need special soil? Well, they spend a lot of time in production, so they need a soil that is stable and reliable for the duration. The key characteristic for TropiGrow is that it keeps its density and pore space throughout the time the plants are in production. In so doing, the soil level in the pot doesn’t sink. No need to add more soil, which means a savings in time, labor and resources. 

What’s in it? Coir, peat, wood fiber and I am sure a few other things that I didn’t get a chance to write down while talking to the rep. The current generation of TropiGrow is the fifth after three years of testing, and it’s fine-tuned enough to release. Look for them to do a full product release for TPIE.

I mentioned this product in last week’s buZZ! newsletter, but it bears repeating in a newsletter read by interiorscape folks. It’s the Mercury double-action sprayer from Polish manufacturer Kwazar and distributed in the U.S. by Advancing Alternatives. This sprayer sprays on both the pull and the release. So if you’re maintaining interior plantings, green walls and moss walls on the regular and don’t have a battery- or pressurized sprayer, this might help relieve some of the stress buildup in your hands. Same motion, twice the spritz!

With this color, you won't be leaving this sprayer behind on a job site. 

They have a more colorful consumer product, the Feeria, which is a continuous mister/sprayer—even better on your hands! And you can spray with it at any angle, even upside down. You’ll be the most stylish person on the crew. Available in four fun color combinations.

Maybe I’ve been living under a rock, but I don’t recall ever talking to the folks from Environmental Plant Management. I took care of that oversight during Cultivate and found two products that’ll come in handy during your routine interior plant maintenance.

ECO-Green Plant Wash is an all-natural product that gives leaves some luster by washing away dirt and grime and restoring their natural luster. Slow-growing and poor performing plants? Maybe they need the dirt washed away to allow stomata and chloroplasts to function properly. Available in seven sizes ranging from 8 oz. to 275 gal. What a range!

Need something shinier than the natural luster of the plants? Eco-Shine is an oil-free, ready-to-use leaf gloss foliar spray that works in one simple step. The water-based coating does not need to be wiped off and it’ll stay until you wash it off. It comes in 16 oz, quart and gallon sizes.

That’s all I have from Cultivate’25—for now. As I move through my notes, I may find a thing or two I missed on a first pass. If I find anything, I’ll let you know!