What’s Happening Here?
I hope your spring season is going well. As plants grow and come into flower I occasionally come across the unexpected. This morning I came across a peculiar looking campanula. Check it out.
There were three plants with this appearance mixed within a group of Campanula Genti Blue. They were carried over from last year. They’ve been around awhile but haven’t had any birthdays yet.
This challenge isn’t particularly hard, but I find this appearance to be very interesting and thought you might also enjoy seeing it. Do you know, “What’s Happening Here?” Hang in there, I’ll share the answer after you enjoy the following articles.
New at Terra Nova
Each year Terra Nova Nursery introduces several new perennials to the industry. Here’s a few recent introductions that caught my eye.
Leucanthemum Lemon Meringue
This reblooming shasta daisy provides season long color atop its nice compact foliage. Multiple layers of flowers develop as new flowers grow just above the existing blooms. The flowers open with a cheery soft yellow coloration and turn to a clean white appearance over time.
Lemon Meringue reaches just 14-in. tall when blooming, making it an ideal candidate for containers or the landscape. Hardy to Zone 5.
Echinacea Fresco Apricot
Fresco Apricot is a refreshing new echinacea introduction from Terra Nova. It produces loads of large apricot-colored flowers. The zinnia-like blooms are highlighted with brushstroke-like streaks in light violet and coral. It’s rapid growing, well branched and provides long lasting color. Fresco Apricot reaches 29-in. tall when blooming and is hardy throughout Zones 4 to 9.
Gaura Confetti Pink
Here’s a hassle free gaura that doesn’t require pinching for branching or PGRs to reduce plant size.
Confetti Pink is both well-branched and compact. The foliage emerges red in the spring and gets greener as the season progresses. The compact plants explode with colorful clear pink flowers on stout stems. It reaches just 14-in. in height when blooming and is hardy to Zone 5.
Social Media Myth Busters
This sounds like the title of an interesting reality TV show. Thinking back a decade or even longer, who would’ve thought how influential social media would not only be in our personal lives, but also in how our industry conducts business? Are you taking advantage of social media to promote your events, products and services? Maybe you’ve fallen victim to some common misconceptions.
Pen and Petal had a great article dispelling the myths around social media in its latest
Profit Pointers newsletter. Rather than paraphrasing the article, I thought you’d appreciate reading it in its entirety.
Common Social Media Myths
Social media marketing has accumulated some pretty big myths since its integration. Let’s focus for the sake of time on three of the biggest myths surrounding social media.
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My customers aren’t on social media.
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You should join every single available social media network immediately.
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You should only focus on building followers that will become customers.
Whether you’ve heard them from friends, fellow business associates, or just can’t remember where you heard them some of these just get stuck in our brains. Let's break them down.
Myth #1 - Your customers just aren't on social media. False. As a rough estimate over 3.7 billion people worldwide are active on social media. When thinking in terms of a customer base, chances are you have at least one social media platform that has an audience your business could gain value from using. Not sure which network that is? Research them and focus on devoting time and resources to a platform that aligns most with your audience. Need help finding the right fit for your social media tactics? We've got you.
Myth #2 - You should join every single social media network immediately and manage them all from the get-go. False. Focus on where your audience is, and where your customers interact with others interested in your industry. The content you put out there is key to drawing in followers. Make sure you are able to manage the social networks you use before you commit to them all. No one likes to look up a business and see a big goose egg on content. If it seems overwhelming, start with one key network and build from there until you are hitting all the major channels that you believe best utilize your content. You may not be big into video content that's fine, start with a channel such as Twitter or Facebook where you can still put out great content and only add in videos where you see fit.
Myth #3 - You should only focus on building followers that will become customers. False. Followers of any kind are important. You should NEVER underestimate the power of a large social media following. You may think but what if they live outside of our area of reach or would never be interested in our products. If they follow you, it's because they are interested in what you have to say. Whether they themselves are a customer is irrelevant. They can still share and promote your content to others who could become key customers.
Finally, one common overall misconception, social media marketing tactics don’t drive bottom-line results. This is a huge myth and completely false. HubSpot put together some statistics to help brands better understand this. Did you know 83% of people use Instagram to discover new products and services? Of those individuals, 87% said they made a purchase after seeing product information. Additionally, 75% of Millennials say social media helps them engage with companies and brands. Still don’t believe us? 79% of people say that user-generated content from social media impacts their purchasing decisions. At the end of the day, social media leads to customers and generates dollars–the bottom line. Don’t let yourself get caught up in the myths surrounding this strategic tactic, utilize it and make it work for you.
If you enjoyed this article, I encourage you to subscribe to Pen and Petal’s free Profit Pointers newsletter. Follow this link to see the newsletters archives:
As you’ll see, Pen and Petal’s Profit Pointers covers several relevant marketing topics including How to Maximize Social Media, Improving Email Open Rates and Emarketing to name a few.
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Cutting Greenhouse Costs
I thought that subject line would grab your attention. Now that I’m back in the swing of overseeing the growing at Opel Growers, I can really appreciate any information that will help control and/or reduce production costs.
With skyrocketing energy and labor costs, it’s important now more than ever to take steps to optimize growth while controlling costs. Dirk Sprangers from Argus Controls along with Shawn Cooney, a CEA lettuce and hemp grower, will discuss how environmental control systems can be used to optimize the greenhouse environment while limiting your use of electricity and heating fuel in their upcoming FREE “Achieving a More Sustainable Operation Through Automation” webinar.
The webinar is next week on Thursday, May 5, 2022 at 1:00 PM Eastern/12:00 PM Central time. Please join them to learn how automating your growing environment can lead to a more sustainable operation.
Click
HERE to sign up for this FREE event. It will definitely cost you more to not attend.
The Answer Is…
At the opening of the newsletter, I shared the image of the peculiar campanula above left and asked if you know what was going on with it? The image on the right is how I’d expect Campanula Genti to appear.
I’m thinking that most of you likely think you know the answer even though you may not have seen this before on your past campanula crops. Is this frost injury, thrips damage, due to an herbicide application, due to a funky mutation or perhaps a plant virus?
If you’re answer is none of the above, you’re correct. I’m not a virologist and don’t play one on TV, but my first thought was these plants had a virus. Then after doing some digging for this issue, the answer landed in my lap.
I could be wrong, but it appears that mixed in with numerous containers of overwintered of Campanula Genti Blue are a few pots of one of this plant’s closest relatives. These odd appearing plants appear to be its sister Genti Twisterbell. Here’s what Genti Twisterbell looks like.
See the resemblance? This goes to show that things aren’t always what they seem, but if you keep looking and asking questions, the answers are often out there.
Thanks for reading this edition of Perennial Pulse. My email is paul@opelgrowers.com if you have any comments, article suggestions or if you'd just like to say "hello."
Paul Pilon
Editor-at-Large—Perennial Pulse
Director of Growing—Opel Growers
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