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

Photos courtesy of Mycorrhizal Applications

As the world’s leading manufacturer of professional-grade mycorrhizal inoculant products, Mycorrhizal Applications researches, produces, and markets a diverse selection of mycorrhizal fungi species, with the mission to “harness the power and wisdom of natural systems to promote living soils and increase quality, productivity, and health in all industries involving soils, plants, and people.”

Once introduced to the plant’s root system, mycorrhizae create a microscopic network within the growing media, which acts as a living extension of the plant’s roots, actively delivering nutrients, water, and resources to the plant. Mycorrhizal fungi are the most researched soil organisms in the world, with scholarly research articles and published trials numbering in the tens of thousands. Approximately 95 percent of plant species on Earth rely on symbiotic mycorrhizal fungi to thrive and reach their full genetic potential.

Professional horticulturists, nurseries, greenhouses, landscape professionals, farmers, forestry nurseries, restoration/erosion control specialists, and even growing media and fertilizer manufacturers utilize the MycoApply® professional line of mycorrhizal inoculants produced by Mycorrhizal Applications to maximize plant success and improve return on input investment. By establishing this vital symbiosis, growers can reduce their fertilizer inputs by as much as 30-50 percent. MycoApply® helps growers optimize plant performance, stress resilience, and sustainability, and is available from horticulture distributors and suppliers throughout the U.S. Mycorrhizal Applications is not only one of the first commercial producers of mycorrhizae for horticulture, agriculture, and all industries involving soils, plants, and people — they also offer unique and valuable customer service and technical support.

As the leader in the field of commercial mycorrhizal inoculant products, the team at Mycorrhizal Applications has decades of experience helping professional growers adopt this crucial symbiotic technology. Growers can work with Mycorrhizal Applications to determine the best blend of mycorrhizal species to utilize for the particular crops that they grow, discuss which inoculation methods to consider, and plan for the ideal timing in the production process for inoculation in order to ensure the lowest cost and maximum return on investment. Mycorrhizal Applications is also actively working with growers across the country who are adopting mycorrhizae in their greenhouse or nursery. If interested in learning more about applying mycorrhizae, growers can contact the Mycorrhizal Applications team for information, resources, and also to determine if an on-site consultation is available.

MycoApply^® product information, technical resources, informative articles, a map of U.S. horticulture distributors, and much more is available at the company’s website.

FOR MORE: mycorrhizae.com