The PEN

Fairy Gardening Inc. launches partnership

Fairy Gardening Inc. officially launched a partnership with Henry F. Michell Co. and Gulley Greenhouse at the OFA Short Course in Columbus, Ohio. According to Fairy Gardening Inc., this partnership will give growers throughout the nation unprecedented access to Fairy Flowers, the industry’s only completely branded line of plants specifically for Fairy Gardening.

The plants in the Fairy Flowers line have been individually selected because they naturally stay small or can be trimmed to stay tiny. These flowers thrive as outdoor plants in the height of the growing season and as indoor plants the remainder of the year. Each plant comes with a tag that introduces consumers to both the fairy and the flower he or she has created.

Growers throughout the United States will now be able to order pre-finished plants exclusively through Henry F. Michell Co., and Gulley Greenhouse will ship plug trays along with the official Fairy Flowers tags. The initial line of pre-finished plants includes 33 plants representing a wide variety of vegetation so fairy gardeners can create realistic miniature landscapes.

For more: www.fairygardening.com

ANLA and OFA announce joint event

OFA and The American Nursery & Landscape Association (ANLA) have announced the development of a new, joint event named “Next Level,” that will take place Jan. 31 to Feb. 2, 2013 at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel in Nashville, Tenn.

In a recent press release, OFA CEO Michael Geary said that the Next Level event is designed to help participants clarify their own next level and expose them to ideas and insights that can help bridge that gap, while also connecting them to like-minded colleagues.

The ANLA and OFA have retained the services of nationally recognized educational event designer Jeffrey Cufaude to help plan the meeting. He will work with a planning committee made up of members from both organizations. With direction from volunteer leaders, an initial meeting with the staffs of OFA and ANLA, held in June, defined the goals for the conference.

The educational program is currently under development. Further details will be available at the end of September.

For more: www.onevoiceoneindustry.com

BioWorks partners with DCM Corp. to offer fertilizers

BioWorks Inc., a provider of environmentally responsible, safe and effective growing solutions, announced that it has entered a strategic alliance with DCM Corp. of Belgium, a producer of natural and organic-based fertilizers in Western Europe.

The premier fertilizer product line to be offered by BioWorks in the U.S. will be branded under the trade name Verdanta, and will include organic and organo-mineral fertilizers for professional horticulture and specialty agriculture growers.

Verdanta fertilizers will initially include two liquid and three granular formulations. The granular fertilizers are developed using the exclusive Minigran Technology – a formulation that provides dust-free, organic and organo-mineral microgranules with a homogeneous composition that assures a uniform nutrient analysis in every granule. BioWorks says it flows freely through all types of application equipment and offers better control of nutrient release.

BioWorks plans to offer Verdanta fertilizers to growers of greenhouse ornamentals and vegetables, specialty agriculture, and nursery and landscape plants later in 2012.

For more: www.bioworksinc.com
 

New color added to WonderFall trailing pansy series

Syngenta Flowers announced that a new color has been added to its WonderFall trailing pansy series. Purple with Face brings the series, which was introduced at this year’s Spring Trials, to six colors.

The WonderFall pansies have vigorous branching and large flowers. Their spreading habit makes them suitable for containers, hanging baskets and garden beds as well. Other WonderFall colors include Blue Picotee Shades, Lavender Picotee Shades, Purple and Blue Shades, Rose Shades with Face and Yellow with Red Wing.

For more: www.syngentaflowersinc.com
 

Burpee tackles food deserts

Building on its mission to spread healthy living and home-grown garden success across the nation, Burpee Home Gardens is putting rubber to the road with its Grow Anywhere Tour and new Burpee food truck. With cross-country stops in 25 cities, the Grow Anywhere Tour food truck will give away 39,000 pounds of fresh vegetables and 13,000 vegetable plants to people living in food deserts.

Food deserts are areas designated as having no easy and close access to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables in a geographic radius. Often these areas only afford access to fast foods and processed ingredients, further exacerbating poor dietary habits. The USDA has identified more than 6,000 food deserts in the continental U.S., affecting nearly 13.6 million people with low access to fresh produce sources.

Communities can support the Grow Anywhere Tour through donations and by selecting the food truck’s destinations via Burpee’s website and social media pages. Watch the truck’s progress with an interactive map and information app on Facebook.com/BurpeeHomeGardens.

For more: www.burpeehomegardens.com
 

Vegetative ornamentals to be included in AAS trialing program

After 80 years of exclusively trialing new seed varieties, All-America Selections (AAS) will now include vegetative ornamentals in its trialing program.

AAS says it will parallel its efforts to coincide with those of the industry, as the industry continues to shift to producing and consuming more vegetative varieties. The organization says that, “a flower is a flower,” to most of today’s consumers, so granting the AAS Winner award to the best performing flower entries, regardless of whether they’re produced from seed or a cutting, reinforces the message that an AAS winner provides superior garden performance.

The pilot program of trialing vegetative entries will begin in 2013 and a select number of trial judges from across the U.S. and Canada have been invited to participate. Breeders can begin submitting a limited number of entry applications this August with a deadline of Nov. 1. Vegetative entries will be trialed in containers next to comparisons of similar vegetative varieties already on the market. All other aspects of the AAS Vegetative Ornamental Trials will closely resemble those of the flower seed trials.

Future AAS Winners from the Vegetative Trials will be announced at one of the three times, just as seed winners are: late January, early July or early November.

For more: www.all-americaselections.org