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Stand-Out Plants for 2023
After 4 busy weeks of visitors from across the horticultural industry, the Ball Summer Showcase came to a close on 5th August 2022.
Despite almost 5 weeks without rain and the amongst the highest temperatures recorded in the UK, the summer plants trials and displays proved a resounding success and a valuable visit to all those who visited. The challenging weather conditions certainly demonstrated how plant genetics have improved dramatically over the past years with so many plant varieties showing amazing resilience to the most unforgiving heat and lack of rain.
“Not an ideal year to launch a new series of Double Busy Lizzies!” says Stuart Lowen, Marketing Manager at Ball. “But testament to the incredible breeding work carried out by our sister company, Ball FloraPlant, the all-new Downy Mildew resistant Glimmer™ Impatiens simply stole the show. Through heat and sun, the robust plants and rose-like blossoms of Glimmer just battled on to give a non-stop display of colour… that’s just what we want from new plant varieties!”
The extended presentation of Lasting Beauty® Perennials which included Everlasting Beauty shrubs, Edible Beauty soft fruit and Exotic Beauty succulents and tropical plants were also incredibly well received. Developed and sourced through our extensive global partners, these varieties really deliver stand-out performance on the nursery and provide exciting solutions for retail and todays modern gardener.
More of the outdoor display space was given over to retail bench displays with plants in a range of pots sizes to help growers and retailers see the real potential of the plant varieties. Ideas such as Vertical MixMasters® using climbing Ipomoea SolarTower™ and Thunbergia SunEyes in tripods, Speedplanters in a range of baskets and containers to show how flexible they can be to suit any retail price point, and an extensive Retail Concept display of CC Trolleys and themed planteria benching to create interest in taking retail presentations to the next level.
As always there was an extensive trialling area of over 1,000 experimental Annual and Perennial varieties providing visitors full transparency on ‘What’s cooking in the kitchen’, a great insight to the continuous stream of future new plant varieties Ball is looking at for the UK and Irish market.
As always, Ball offer visitors the opportunity to vote for their favourite Annual and Perennial varieties from any of the trials or plant displays.
We are delighted to share these results with you. Please click on the buttons below to see the Customer's favourite varieties for 2023:
Ball Trial Grounds in the UK
Ball in the UK has been conducting plant variety trials and customer open days from their Trial Grounds in West Adderbury for 60 years.
Today’s Trial Grounds not only presents the companies assortment of catalogue varieties in a rich display of settings and retail ideas, but also comprehensively evaluates hundreds of new future lines before introduction. This ensures that when a product is introduced in the Ball Colegrave catalogues, our staff and visitors have seen it and know it performs under UK growing conditions!
Trials are conducted all year round with an open house for customers during autumn, spring and summer. Over 25,000 Annual and Perennial plants are bedded out in the summer trial and display beds with an excess of 5,000 pot plants and 2,000 patio baskets/containers are planted up for the event.
Traditionally the Trial Grounds were attended by Parks and Nurserymen. Today they are joined by an ever-increasing number of Retail Plant Buyers looking for new plant and retail solutions.
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