Retail-Ready CAST Intros

Chris Beytes, Bill Calkins & Jennifer Zurko

Hypoestes Lotty Dotty (Westhoff)
The name means the foliage has a lot of dots—which it does! These vegetative polka dot plants are more vigorous than their seed counterparts. The collection comes in White, Pink, Rose and Red. They’re all part of Westhoff’s Fancy Fillers collection of foliage accent plants.

Dahlia Darlin’ Perfect Red (Danziger)
With huge, double blooms, Dahlia Darlin’ Perfect Red brings a hot color to the series from Danziger. Grow and sell this large begonia in gallons for big retail impact.

Cuphea Cubano Presidente (Danziger)
This tall, upright bush type cuphea from Danziger will attract hummingbirds, bees AND shoppers interested in attracting pollinators. Cubano Presidente joins Cristo and Fuente, making a nice collection.

Bidens Bee Giant Yellow (Cohen)
Cohen also offers genetics from the Israeli company Breier & Son, who's offering a stunning new bidens in the Bee series called Giant Yellow. Shows off giant flowers on a compact plant.

Petunia Amazonas Plum Cockatoo (Danziger)
Of all the colorful petunias we saw up and down the coast, for some reason Amazonas Plum Cockatoo stood out. Perhaps it helps that they say that bit of green chlorophyll in the flower petal gives them more durability, almost like a leaf.

Silene Carol Jean (Green Fuse)  
A groundcover-type flower, silene, which they likened to a “summertime Phlox subulata,” comes in a new series that includes Pink and White.

Lavender Plum Power (PP&L)
A new Spanish lavender (stoechas) from PP&L is Plum Power with fuschia-colored blooms on 18- by 18-in. plants that thrive in heat with excellent disease resistance. It’s hardy to Zone 8.

Dahlia Labella Medio, Maggiore Fun, Grande (Beekenkamp)
With more than five years of focused breeding for bicolors, dark foliage and varieties that stand out at retail, Beekenkamp’s dahlia assortment covers all the sizes, from big to small. In the compact Medio series, intended for 5- to 6-in. pots, Beekenkamp launched a lot of new colors in Medio and Medio Fun (“Fun” in the name indicates bicolors). In the very large Maggiore collection, suited for 8- to 10-in. pots, we saw the stunning new Red Ruffle and Pink/Yellow. And the Grande collection for gallon-sized pots adds three beautiful colors—Coral, Sunrise and Caramel.

Cleome Lavender Dreams (Ball FloraPlant)
Said to be 30% more compact than the leading vegetative cleome, we suspect this introduction could get a few more siblings and become a series.

Arctotis MAJEC (Green Fuse)
Arctotis is a tough, cool-season groundcover plant with silvery foliage and nice flowers. The new MAJEC series from Green Fuse Botanicals takes it to another level with eight unique colors, including what may be the first yellow on the market. This series is ideal for early spring sales alongside pansies, osteospermum and other cool-season crops.

Gazania Sterling Silver (Green Fuse)
Named for its silvery foliage, this series gets two colors, Yellow and Burgundy Stripe.

Petunia Tumbelina (Cohen)
Double-flowered and lightly scented, this series of trailing petunias will stand out at retail in premium baskets.

Gerbera Majorette Orange & Yellow Bicolor Dark Eye (Sakata)
It’s a large orange flower with a strong and stable yellow ring around the dark center. Like other modern gerbera daisy breeding programs, Majorettes promise two blooms up and two buds coming. And they say Majorette is more uniform in timing between colors (10 days from first to last to bloom, versus three weeks).

Pansy Colormax Blue Jeans (Sakata)
A pansy/viola cross, ColorMax is a hybrid series with hybrid vigor. It has big flowers, but the durability of a viola. We asked if it was positioned for fall or spring and the answer was both. Blue Jeans is the new color.

Calceolaria Calynopsis (Selecta One)  
Commonly called pocketbook plant for its uniquely shaped flower, the Calynopsis series of calceolaria was bred for daylength neutrality to help growers nail the timing for spring sales. It’s been around for a few years, but now some production issues have been worked out, and it’s ready to rock and roll with Orange and Red.

Catharanthus Soiree Kawaii, Flamenco (Suntory)
The Soiree Catharanthus line seems to be doing well and is continuing to grow. For 2024, you can expect new Paprika Red in the Kawaii series of more vigorous varieties, as well as Salsa Red in the Flamenco ruffled, bicolor collection.

Pansy Cats Plus Blue & Yellow (Benary)
The Cats series of pansies from Benary are named for the pronounced “whisker” pattern on their large blooms. Grow the series for spring or fall, and consider mixing new Cats Plus Blue & Yellow with solid-colored pansies for dramatic contrast.

Canna South Pacific (Takii)
Two new colors are being added to the South Pacific series—Yellow and White. South Pacific is an F1 seed series, meaning no disease issues. Those two bring the series to six colors, including two AAS winners!

Check out more new annuals and other varieties on our YouTube channel. GP