Mar 26, 2004

University of Florida Gets Ready for 2004 Floriculture Field Day.Source: University of Florida

The 2004 Floriculture Field Day, sponsored by the North Florida Flowering Plant Producers and the University of Florida’s Environmental Horticulture Department, will be in Gainesville, Fla, May 19 and 20. It will be at the Paramount Hotel on May 19 and at the University of Florida on May 20, with the theme “”¦From Greenhouse to Landscape, Finding the Best!”

The Field Day is a two-day educational program focusing on flowering crop production and use and is designed for retailers, wholesalers, landscapers and interested consumers. According to Rick Schoellhorn, floriculture extension specialist at the University of Florida, “The concept is to educate all levels of the industry on new developments, new crops and new ideas for the floriculture industry.”

The $85 registration fee includes both days of sessions, lunch and dinner and a tour of Kanapaha Botanical Gardens, the second largest botanical garden in Florida. Attendees will have two days of speakers, a roundtable discussion, field trials of more than 300 annuals and perennials, a plant and seed auction and tours focusing on new varieties and ways to find them. There is no registration deadline, and forms can be found on the Field Day Web site at: http://hort.ifas.ufl.edu.

The program includes four tracks: crop production, retailing, cool new crops and an outdoor classroom including trial garden tours, overviews of research and breeding programs and how-to sessions. Seminars this year will focus on production and use of annuals and perennials for color in the Florida landscape.

Sessions will include : The Nature of Cottage Gardening, Flower Bulbs for the Southeast, Specialty Cut Flowers, Mixed Containers, Perennials for the Shade and Herbaceous Plants for Coastal Areas. Representatives from the nation’s leading plant-introduction firms will participate in a slide presentation and discussion entitled New Plant Showcase, highlighting what is coming to our industry in the future.

The retail track will include John Gaydos of Proven Winners, GPN’s Bridget White, Jamie Gibson and GPN columnist Rick Schoellhorn of the University of Florida, Teresa and Kevin Riley of Rockledge Gardens and Randy Harelson of the Gourd Garden. According to Schoellhorn, “Since the overall focus of the UF Floriculture Field Day is new crops and new ideas for our industry, the idea behind the retail track is to draw retailers in, as well as their counterparts in production and interested consumers, so that communication across the board is enhanced.”

Other 2004 Floriculture Field Day speakers will include : Gary Alan (HGTV personality), Scott Ogden (author of Moonlit Garden and Bulbs for the South), Ted Stevens (Nurseries Caroliniana), Michelle Bell (SePRO), Cass Meadows (Indian River Lily Company), Lee Bloomcamp (Syngenta), Rick Brown (Riverview Flower Farms), Alan Cone (Casa Flora), Rita Randolph (Randolph’s Nursery, GPN contributing editor Jim Barrett, Phil Harmon, David Sandrock and Everett Emino (University of Florida).