Get out your dancing shoes and your party poppers—this coming Saturday, January 10 is officially National Houseplant Day!

Actually, forget the shoes and party favors and instead rely on your social media skills, merchandising genius and marketing prowess (and maybe some last-minute ordering magic) to spread the word about National Houseplant Day to both your B2B and consumer customers. Here are a few ideas you can riff off of:

Start a plant preview countdown. Highlight one houseplant per day on your socials with some “Did you know?”-type facts, including a consistent message such as “Counting down to National Houseplant Day.” If you’re a retailer, include pics of in-store displays. Growers might share “This is how it's grown” type of content.

Focus your National Houseplant Day message. Address one houseplant-related issue. For a lot of folks, that issue is wintertime low-humidity levels. Drive that message home to your customers with the point being, “Yes, you can have thriving houseplants in ‘dry January’ and here is how.” You’re establishing your business as the problem solver and expert. You’re building trust. And trust builds confidence—and bottom lines.

Whatever you plan to do, you better get on it quickly! Sorry for the late notice—I’ll have to put a note in my calendar about this for some time at the beginning of December.

Headed to the Tropical Plant International Expo (TPIE) happening in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, January 21-23? Great! After having consulted with the show management, I have three suggestions for educational sessions you should attend.

• I believe I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s worth saying again, especially for those of you doing landscapes. TPIE will feature a new full-day workshop called “Managing the Modern Landscape: Palms, Performance and Property Success.” The workshop will focus on the latest insights related to palm care, pest control and overall landscape health. Register for this Wednesday, January 21-workshop HERE.
• Highlighting exceptional floral design, floral designer Joyce Mason-Monheim will lead an educational session titled "Floral Designing With Tropical Foliage: How to Grow Sales with Blooming Displays for Your Retail 'Root'-ine." This session is slated for Thursday, January 22. Learn more about it and register for it HERE.

• Another excellent TPIE educational offering this year will be "Trendsetters in Bloom: New Plants Defining What's Next in Horticulture." This session will be led by Monrovia Chief Marketing Officer and renowned trendspotter Katie Tamony. Put this session on your calendar for Wednesday, January 21. Learn more and register HERE.

Aside from the excellent educational sessions and workshops, there’s the wealth of new plants and products available to view on the trade show floor. Speaking of which, if you want to take part in The Garden Center Group’s search for this year’s winners of its Cool Product Awards, you can! Just commit to scouring the trade show floor on Wednesday, January 21 and meeting up with fellow cool product hunters later that day to whittle down the nominees. I’ve participated and it’s well worth your time. Contact Danny Summers about it HERE.

And if you want to meet up with me at any point, either LET ME KNOW or flag me down in the aisles. Happy to chat.

You might recall a recent issue where Andrew Britten, Ball Horticultural’s Technical Sales Manager for Foliage and Tropicals, discussed how growers in South Florida protect their crops from cool to downright cold weather. It’s an ordeal, but it can be done! (If you didn’t read that issue, you can read it HERE.)

Tropical plant and soil expert/consultant Lynn Griffith has also weighed in on impending cold temperatures and their effects on tropicals and houseplants. And also, what are the cold tolerances of certain popular varieties? He addressed both below.

As we are in the coldest months of the year in the northern hemisphere, cold protection is on the minds of those who grow, ship, maintain or retail various houseplant varieties. People generally want an idea of critical temperatures. Understand that such critical temperatures are a moving target. Variables include varieties within a genus, duration of the cold temperatures, wind factors, plant maturity and plant health, among others.

Another important variable is how do you define plant damage? Is it growth reduction, loss of color, leaf injury or other symptoms, including plant death? The critical temperatures in this article are generally limited to those temperatures where plant injury and symptoms may be observed, though not necessarily plant death. Critical temperatures for cold injury can vary by as much as 7F, depending on conditions. Those responsible for protecting tropical plants from cold weather will best serve if they can keep temperatures several degrees above those listed here. The data are a compilation of personal field experience, grower inputs and publications.

Critical Temperatures for Houseplants

Thanks, Lynn!

With a turn of the calendar, it’s once again time to start searching for the next Young Retailer and Young Grower Award winners. If you aren't aware, annually Green Profit and GrowerTalks award young (35 and under) garden retailers and growers who have a passion for what they do—and they do it excellently. It works like this:

• Ball Publishing chooses three finalists for each award and each finalist writes an essay for the June issue of Green Profit or GrowerTalks based on a topic selected by our editors.
• All six finalists are invited to attend Cultivate’26 in Columbus in July and attend dinner with editors, judges and sponsors before the awards ceremony.
• The winners for each award are announced at the Cultivate’26 Unplugged event for young professionals. And that is always a good time!
• The two winners will be featured on the covers of the September issue of Green Profit and GrowerTalks and will be a judge for next year’s award.

It’s an honor to not only recognize the younger folks in the industry, but to also see them grow their contributions over the years. Hey, we know how to pick ‘em!

Feel free to nominate your best employee, a colleague, a friend/family member—or even yourself! Here are the nomination forms for Young Retailer and these are the forms for Young Grower.

Of course, no award giving is possible without the generous support of our sponsors. This year The Garden Center Group and AmericanHort continues their sponsorship of the Young Retailer Award. Ball Horticultural Company, BASF and AmericanHort are again sponsors for the Young Grower Award. The prize sponsor for this year is BASF. Thanks to all!

The deadline is March 1, by the way. Get your nominations in now!

Speaking of both Young Grower Award winners and of Andrew Britten, the big news this week is that Bossman Chris Beytes has started a new video podcast—and Andrew Britten is his first guest! Appropriately called “The Chris Beytes Podcast,” Chris has begun his podcasting adventures by interviewing many of the Young Grower Award winners from the previous 21 years—and the very first winner was Andrew Britten. Imagine that!

Find “The Chris Beytes Podcast” on YouTube. And be sure to like and follow to keep up with what the old Young Growers are doing now.