Jan 16, 2017

Sakata to Participate in Southern Garden Tour

Sakata Seed America will officially be a host for the 2017 Southern Garden Tour taking place June 6-8.

This year’s tour is comprised of three hosted sites: Young’s Plant Farm, Sakata Seed America and Metrolina Greenhouses. The event is open to all visitors including retailers, brokers, breeders, growers, industry professionals, media and students.

The Southern Garden Tour is an opportunity to view All-America Selection trial sites featuring planters and hanging basket combinations for sun and shade, as well as in-ground and pot trials for up to 500 perennial varieties and 1500 annual varieties. Attendees will see new introductions for the 2017-2018 season along with commercial benchmarks.

The Young’s Plant Farm stop will consist of 26,400 square feet of raised beds which include both sun and shade conditions.

Sakata will host its trials at the South Carolina Botanical Garden at Clemson University and will spotlight its newest genetics including new AAS Winner, Profusion Red, and stunning new SuperCal colors, Red Crimson and Buttercream, to name a few. Another focal point will be Sakata’s Home Grown vegetable offering. A favorite of garden and lifestyle expert P. Allen Smith, Sakata’s Home Grown vegetable offering features home gardener-friendly plants that are known for super performance in the garden, in addition to being aesthetically pleasing and delicious. Highlights of Sakata flowers and vegetables will be displayed in combination planters and picturesque lifestyle settings.

The Metrolina trial will be planted week 17 of 2017 and all annuals will be kept in the ground until week 34 while perennials will be kept in the garden for two years. This year, Metrolina invested in a new pergola to display combination hanging baskets. Metrolina’s stop highlights include 1500 annual varieties (both introductions and benchmarks) planted in ground and in 14” pots and 350 perennials overwintered from the 2016 garden transplant, as well as 200 top hanging basket combinations for the sun and shade.