For the last few weeks I’ve been telling you all about the deservedly award-winning plants and products that wowwed judges and attendees at this year’s Tropical Plant International Expo back in January. Now it’s time to reveal what items caught my eye. And I have something for everyone reading this—the growers, the retailers and the interiorscapers.

For you growers, let’s start with the Bug Flow from BioBee. It is essentially a hopper into which you put beneficials, and the device shoots them to where you need those good bugs to be. This is especially useful for folks who may be growing taller items like palms or who have field-grown crops that might be hard to reach otherwise. The Bug Flow gives you a uniform and consistent application of beneficials with a high survival rate of them during the application process. The device is compatible with (but does not come with) a few Makita blower models.

My best Rambo imitation.

Here’s a VIDEO of the Bug Flow in action.

Also for you growers, this is a tidbit I picked up from InVerde’s Estuardo Arriago. When I asked, “What’s new?” he showed me a braided ZZ plant.

You can have only so much new innovation in the plants themselves, so in order to produce something new and exciting, “what’s new” is new forms, not necessarily new colors. He also showed me a bunch of new forms and shapes for snake plant, too, but these braided ZZs were new to me.

Some plants still have a ton of new color and shape possibilities, and those would be cacti. Estuardo showed me these boxes of about 46 different varieties and like a good box of chocolates, there’s something in it for everyone.

For you retailers, I have one plant and one product for today. First, the product: planting mats. Interestingly, two companies were offering roll-up planting mats. I always used newspapers when I used to have a print subscription but those never really held in the mess. But I love the concept of a mat that, thanks to a few well-placed snaps, holds in the mess and can be easily cleaned and dried. The two companies that had them this year were We The Wild (who actually won a Cool Product Award for it, I had forgotten to mention that last week) and a new company called Arber.

We The Wild’s planting mat, seen rolled up for easy storage.

The planting mat from Arber, where you can see how it snaps together in the corners to help contain the mess.

Arber had a cool assortment of other products, too. I will tell you more about those in my buZZ newsletter this week.

As for the plant, this Solar Flare aloe from the folks at Heart of Florida is the first variegated aloe that I have seen. Austin Bryant told me that it was found as an advantageous sucker on an all-green aloe out in the greenhouse. After multiple generations of growing it out, he assures us that the variegation—a creamy yellowish that arises from the rosette with green leaf tips—is stable. It looks so nice you almost wouldn’t want to break off a leaf to ease your burn.

Scrolling through my photos I see I have A LOT of good plants to share with you in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!

Speaking of Austin Bryant, he kindly invited me to the 2024 International Plantscape Awards Gala presented by I-Plants Magazine held during TPIE. The Gala celebrates outstanding achievement in interior design, installation, maintenance and vision. I know I concentrate on the growing and selling of houseplants and tropicals in this forum, but golly what these interiorscapers can do with these plants! The table decorations alone were over the top.

The Gala itself was too dark to take good photos, but this lovely indoor foliage centerpiece adorned a high top at the pre-Gala reception.

From moss walls that amaze to corporate and retailer interiors that bring a sense of calm to staff and clients, I would argue that it’s the interiorscape arm of the industry that inspires and compels customers to bring plants into their own homes. I-Plants Magazine has images of all winning installations for your amazement in the latest online edition of their magazine, which you can find HERE. 

Speaking of award ceremonies, we’re throwing our annual Young Grower and Young Retailer Awards ceremony in July during Cultivate’24. But before we do that, we need nominees!

If you know of a hard-working professional grower under the age of 35, nominate them for the 2024 GrowerTalks/Ball Horticultural Company Young Grower Award! (Pssst! You can nominate yourself!) For the last 19 years, GrowerTalks has recognized the young great growers who are standing out and making names for themselves in the tough business of commercial growing.

Once the nominations are in, three finalists are chosen, and each finalist:

• is asked to write a guest editorial for the June issue of GrowerTalks,
• gets a free trip to Cultivate’24, and
• attends a special dinner with Anna Ball and other industry luminaries while they’re in Columbus.

The winner is announced at the Unplugged event during Cultivate’24, will be the subject of our September issue cover story and serve as one of our judges for next year’s award.

Head over to HERE to submit your application. And by the way, you can nominate yourself! Green Profit is doing the same thing for retailers. Know an extraordinary retailer? Give them a shout-out and submit their qualifications HERE. We have a hard stop on nominations on March 1—the end of next week—so get your submissions in now. And good luck!