Two From the Show

This year’s Ohio Florists’ Association trade show was, as usual, a mind-boggling mix of new crops and production technology. The educational program was stuffed with great speakers, and I admire anyone who can attend this event, walk the show and attend the educational programs without being reduced to a twitching mass of over-stimulated nerve endings. This is a great show to see almost everything in our industry on display. However, after seeing so many booths it really takes something different to catch my eye and make me stop to really study what is being displayed.

This year there were a couple of booths with something really different and off the map in terms of crops. Okay, I’ll admit it — these are two crops we are working on in Florida, and I found out someone had already beaten us to the punch! This is great news, because these wonderful plants — Lachenalia and Scutellaria — hold excellent potential to become high-profit specialty items that are not difficult to master.

Lachenalia: a hyacinth for warm seasons

Vosbol international’s booth at Ohio show was full of only one crop: a little-known and completely underused flowering bulb. I had heard of Lachenalia for years, but this was the first time I had actually seen it in flower and available for commercial production, and I think it offers a great market niche for U.S. growers.

Lachenalia are from the cool regions of South Africa and resemble the Dutch hyacinth in flower shape and form, but are quite different and really striking. If you are looking for a flowering bulb that your customers will never have seen before that is both exotic and extremely colorful, this crop might just be for you.

Unlike the typical spring bulbs we force every year, this crop does not need the long cooling periods of the Dutch hyacinth. In fact, with proper scheduling this bulb can be produced right through summer as long as the nights remain cool in your production facility. If you have been avoiding bulb production because of the equipment needed to do it right, you might consider this crop, which can be grown on benchtops from planting to sale.

The flowers, resembling the better-known Dutch hybrid hyacinth, are not as stiff or solid in texture, and the individual flowers hang slightly downward and do not flare like the Dutch types. These are not as fragrant as Dutch hyacinth either, so don?t expect that strong perfume when the plants flower. Cultivars come in jeweled tones of yellow, orange, red and a bright purple to blue. The foliage is spotted or striped with purple tones, and the whole effect is very exotic. Plants range in size from 6-12 inches and leaves are from 6-10 inches in length.

The ‘African Beauty’ series, from Vosbol, currently has eight colors. The most vigorous are the yellow and gold-toned flowers, but look for those that have purple markings and purple-toned buds, as they are more striking on the shelf or bench. Yellow-flowering forms include ‘Fransie’, ‘Namakwa’, ‘Ronina’ and ‘Romaud’. Golden-toned hybrids like ‘Rolina’ and ‘Romelia’ have buds in purple to red tones that open gold. Red-flowered ‘Robijn’ is very striking, but the show-stopper is the blue-purple-toned ‘Rupert’ (although this cultivar is also not quite as strong as the yellow cultivars).

For frost-free regions, these bulbs can also be grown outdoors and perform beautifully in sunny, protected locations. They will eventually settle into a winter flowering pattern, although flowering will always be a little difficult to predict. They are still a definite option for specialty landscape use as well.

Scutellaria: still waiting for fame

This group of plants is going to be a huge crop someday. They are much like snapdragons, but with much greater heat tolerance, an equal variety of colors and forms, and species produced by either seed or cuttings for the commercial market. Skull cap, the common name for this group, is not exactly an encouraging title, but it has to do with the shape of the flower and nothing more threatening than that. This genus of plants is also growing in popularity as an herbal remedy for a variety of ailments. With the boost Echinacea got from herbal uses, there is potential for this group to come on strong.

There are a lot of different Scutellaria on the market, although you will have to look fairly hard to find them. They are available in specialty seed catalogs, from native plant suppliers, and very few have made it into the commercial market. Below is a short list of different skull caps you may want to try out in your nursery.

Seed-produced types. Look in specialty seed catalogs for Scutellaria baicalensis (pale blue to deep blue flowers) and Scutellaria ‘Oriental Sun’ (bright yellow spikes of half-inch flowers). Also, never underestimate your local wildflower or native plant suppliers for annual varieties that are best-suited to your area.

Vegetative types. The most common hybrids I have seen are ‘Purple and Pink Fountains’, two trailing forms with intense purple or fuchsia-pink blooms. They are great mixed container plants and also make good hanging basket plants. Another great skull cap is Scutellaria formosana, which has gray-green foliage with royal blue, 1-inch flowers on 3- to 6-inch spikes. It is evergreen in frost-free climates, and hardy to USDA Zone 6B.

Another vegetative type that was on display in the Greenex booth at the OFA trade show was Scutellaria costa-ricana. This is a plant we have been working with in Florida because it is a hardy perennial in USDA Zones 9B and higher and because of its incredible flowering potted plant potential. Instead of a long, thin spike of flowers, this Scutellaria holds the spike straight up, and it is shaped like a small torch. My description of this plant has always been that it looks like someone lit the tips of the stems on fire when it is in flower. The 1- to 1.5-inch flowers are packed into a 4- to 5-inch spike with each flower changing to orange or yellow at the tip, just like a lit match. This is a really great plant and can be grown in either a 5- to 6-inch pot as a flowering crop (that can be planted outside for the rest of the season), or produced as a 4-inch color item for use in mixed containers or sale as a specialty annual.

The best part about what Greenex was offering is that there has only been one color of this species available up until now. The new releases come in a range of colors, from white (‘Flamingo’) to yellow-orange (‘Flame’), deep orange (‘Barbarry’) and red (‘Scarlett’), all with dark green foliage and a good branching habit.

I think this crop has potential for spring and summer color production, and also into other seasons as a flowering potted plant. I have been able to flower the crop in winter in Florida. I highly recommend you give this one a try!