Google has rolled out a host of updates to its search product. The updates are designed to make visual information more useful as pictures and video become more central to the Internet experience.

The new features showing up in searches include introductory videos about public figures, topic videos to help users plan trips or learn about new subjects, and an overhaul of its ranking system for displaying image-based searches, offering users more context and easier ways to shop online.

Businesses can leverage these changes to their benefit by integrating photos, videos, online reviews and more into Google’s “My Business” page.

Posting through Google My Business lets you publish your events, products and services directly to Google Search and Maps. By creating posts, you can place your timely text, video or photo content in front of customers when they find your business listing on Google.

Your business profile appears right when people are searching for your business or businesses like yours on Google Search and Maps. Creating a Google My Business (google.com/business) page is free and you can update your Business Profile with it so you can stand out and bring customers in.

Once you set it up, you can learn how customers are interacting with your Business Profile. How did people find you? Where are they coming from? It’s similar to Google Analytics, but tailored to your specific business. It’s also designed to be much less overwhelming. While many data scientists are devoted to analytics’ ability to handle any deep dive, the sheer amount of variables involved is enough to frustrate those without a statistics degree.

Google My Business also gives you the tools to build a website for your company, for free, in less than 10 minutes. The free website builder makes it easy to create and edit your site from your computer and phone. Google handles the optimization, ensuring your new site will look great on any screen, from desktops to tablets and phones. By doing it Google’s way, you might be losing a bit of your own autonomy, but the tradeoff might be worth it. All of the sites set up through Google My Business are designed to drive customer actions, using Google’s other services, like Maps to help people find you, and AdWords, Google’s online advertising platform that aims to turn searches into sales.

Matt is managing editor of sister publication Nursery Management.

Apple is engaging in an effort to combine applications on iPhones, Macs and iPads by 2021, writes Mark Gurman of Bloomberg.

The project, which has the code name “Marzipan,” could create more software options and increase customer use of Apple products, Gurman writes.

When Apple first announced that it wanted to help developers make iPhone apps available on Macs in June 2018, Wired’s Lauren Goode deemed it the most recent move in tech companies’ shift toward “Frankensoftware.”

Other examples of this streamlining came in the form of Google making Android apps available on Chromebooks in 2016, and making Linux apps available on Chrome OS in May 2018, Goode wrote.

The rollout of “Frankensoftware” can involve some growing pains, Goode wrote, notably windows opening at the wrong size and multiple processes not feeling natural for the user.

“But these software experiments also hold the promise of being able to use the apps or input methods you want, whenever you want to use them,” she added.

Apple plans to allow software developers to convert iPad apps to Macs in 2019, and iPhone apps to Macs in 2020, Gurman writes. Also in 2020, developers will have the option of combining apps for all three device types into single apps. However, this timeline is subject to change, Gurman adds.

“Despite the app merger plan, Apple has said it won’t combine iOS and macOS into a single operating system,” Gurman writes.

Are you looking for something colorful to stand out on your benches as the spring wanes and the summer starts? Something that not only survives, but thrives as the days (and your greenhouse) get warmer and brighter? Look no further than the herbaceous perennial Asclepias tuberosa, or butterfly weed. In 2017, butterfly weed was named the Perennial Plant Association’s 2017 Perennial Plant of the Year, and for good reason. Butterfly weed is an excellent low-maintenance herbaceous perennial that thrives in the summer sun and heat. But the real attraction is the plant’s flowering. Butterfly weed has an extended flowering period, usually with at least two waves of flowering in the landscape. Aside from its landscape performance and ornamental appeal, butterfly weed is best-known not only as a food source for monarch butterflies, but also as their preferred plant for them to lay their eggs on. With the increasing interest in monarch butterfly populations, butterfly weed has been selling out the past few years from the demand.

There are a few different cultivars with ornamental appeal available. The cultivar ‘Hello Yellow’ features bright yellow flowers, while the cultivar ‘Gay Butterflies’ contains a mix of colors, including shades of red, orange and yellow. Depending on your customer, there may be an interest in purchasing native genetics. If you are interested in producing a native genotype, check with your local seed supplier to see what they have, as well as their source if you want to be sure you are using sources you feel comfortable calling “native.”

You can finish butterfly weed in a variety of container sizes, from small quarts to gallons. Regardless of what size container you finish your crop in, seedling plugs are the best starting material for this crop. You can use a large plug, from 50- to 128-cell trays for reduced crop time. However, butterfly weed can also be easily finished from smaller plugs such as a 288-cell tray, though multiple plugs should be used when finishing larger containers from small plugs. Butterfly weed does not require a vernalization or cold treatment to initiate flowering and will flower its first year from seed, making it a relatively straightforward perennial to schedule and finish.

Growing butterfly weed early in the season can be challenging if you don’t have lights available in your facility. Under the short days of earlier spring, butterfly weed growth is minimal, as plants cease developing and can form tubers. However, either day-extension or night-interruption lighting is useful in creating long days to promote growth. Later-season crops, whether grown in a greenhouse or outdoors, won’t require lighting, neither to increase the quantity of light to promote growth nor extend the day length. The longer days of April and onward are sufficient for avoiding dormancy, and by this time the ambient light intensity in your greenhouse is likely reaching or surpassing the 10 to 12 mol·m^–2·d^–1 minimum daily light integral for good crop growth.

In addition, this is a warm-season perennial. In the landscape this is one of the later perennials to emerge, as it grows in response to warmer soil and air temperatures. This is another reason why early-season crops of butterfly weed need warmer temperatures than other perennials for forcing. However, this is also what makes this crop a great season-extender; this crop is well-suited to the warm temperatures outdoors and in the greenhouse that come after the exodus of spring annuals from the benches.

Unlike the related swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata), butterfly weed does not respond well to overwatering or excessive substrate moisture. Careful moisture management is important for butterfly weed. Early crops grown under lower light and cooler temperatures in the greenhouse may need a looser mix to promote substrate drainage and drying-down, whereas later crops can utilize a tighter mix since warmer temperatures and higher light intensities will promote transpiration and drying down. Like irrigation, butterfly weed is not a heavy-feeding greenhouse crop. Using 100 to 150 ppm N from a complete, balanced, water-soluble fertilizer or 3 to 5 lbs/yd3 of controlled-release fertilizer (three- to four-month release period) produces healthy, marketable container-grown plants. Remember to reduce the amount of controlled-release fertilizer used for growing containerized butterfly weed in the summer heat, as the increased temperature will cause nutrients to release more quickly.

Butterfly weed is a crop with bold and beautiful flowers, and the potential for visual and ecological impact, in addition to being well-suited for the warm and bright days from the tail end of spring into summer. Consider featuring this plant as part of any summer crop program.

Photo courtesy of plantpeddler

Cresco, Iowa-based grower Plantpeddler’s love of plants and connnections to the industry help set us apart from the competition.

“At Plantpeddler, we are passionate about plants, but our true passion comes from helping growers be successful and profitable,” says owner Mike Gooder. “Every step in our process, from genetic selection, production protocols, to order management and fulfillment, is focused on how we can build opportunities and eliminate risk for our customers. They are our partners in growth.”

Here’s why working with Plantpeddler could help your business.

Connection to breeding

It starts with our connection to the global community of independent breeders. We don’t just list their varieties, we work in close trusting partnerships to bring you the best. Proven, reliable and innovative genetics.

Continuous trialing

Our job starts where the breeder leaves off. At Plantpeddler, we trial and re-trial varieties in the greenhouse and trial gardens to prove performance under North American conditions. Only the highest performing varieties are selected for our program and recommended to you.

Concise genetic lines

Select the best and eliminate the rest. There is plenty of variety pollution out there. As part of our mission, we focus on delivering a concise program within each genus to ensure consistent results in your greenhouse.

Economical options

We put together elite genetics in a range of sizes to meet the economics of today’s business. We offer options to meet every grower’s needs and budget with cost effective rooted, large liner, and prefinished forms with aggressive pricing with small multiples and minimums.

Commitment to clean

Clean is easy to say, hard to deliver. We work in lock-step with our supply farms to maintain the clean chain. Our protocol follows strict guidelines encompassing facilities, personnel, and systems to ensure the healthiest plants arrive at your greenhouse ready to perform.

Consistent liners

A successful growing season begins with healthy, vigorous starts. We produce superior natural liners through involvement and interaction of seasoned growers, crop specific proven cultural techniques, and optimized growing environments. By selecting Plantpeddler as your young-plant source, you can depend on heavily rooted, compact, energy-charged plants.

It’s as simple as tags

Nothing can mess up your plans like having the plants but no tags. At Plantpeddler, we stock all tags and custom pack them to match your orders. Plants and tags arrive together so you stay on your planting schedule.

Dependable finishes

It all adds up. From the world’s top breeders, we bring concise genetic lines, grown under a clean protocol, to produce high-energy natural liners, delivered with tags to your door ready to perform in your greenhouse. Count on Plantpeddler to ensure dependable finishes, now and for many seasons to come.

FOR MORE: plantpeddler.com

Photos courtesy of James Robbins

2019 COLOR OF THE YEAR

An animating and life-affirming coral hue with a golden undertone that energizes and enlivens with a softer edge.

Representing the fusion of modern life, PANTONE Living Coral is a nurturing color that appears in our natural surroundings and at the same time, displays a lively presence within social media. PANTONE 16-1546 Living Coral emits the desired, familiar and energizing aspects of color found in nature. In its glorious, yet unfortunately more elusive, display beneath the sea, this vivifying and effervescent color mesmerizes the eye and mind.

For 20 years

Pantone’s Color of the Year has influenced product development and purchasing decisions in multiple industries, including fashion, home furnishings, and industrial design, as well as product, packaging, and graphic design.

The Color of the Year selection process requires thoughtful consideration and trend analysis. To arrive at the selection each year, Pantone’s color experts at the Pantone Color Institute comb the world looking for new color influences. This can include the entertainment industry and films in production, traveling art collections and new artists, fashion, all areas of design, popular travel destinations, as well as new lifestyles, playstyles and socio-economic conditions. Influences may also stem from new technologies, materials, textures and effects that impact color.

MATCHING PLANTS

There are plants on the market that match or blend with the 2019 Pantone Color of the Year, allowing the green industry to piggyback marketing efforts of this vibrant color.

• Coral Knock Out rose
• Coral Drift rose
• Easy Elegance Coral
• Cove rose
• Hollywood Hibiscus Playboy
• Echinacea Sombrero Hot Coral
• Flower Carpet Rose Coral
• ‘Coral Sunset’ peony
• Agastache ‘Kudos Coral’
• ‘Wanvisa’ water lily

Flower Carpet Rose Coral

Echinacea Sombrero Hot Coral

Agastache 'Kudos Coral’

Hollywood Hibiscus Playboy