While skimming the plant material last night at a large retail store. "Not to mention names" I came across some beautiful coral and orange poinsettias. The beauty of the plant was overcast by the present of whiteflies. Not just a few. "LOTS!" Touching a leaf would send a white cloud of adults whirling about only to return to that plant and the others near by. You don't have to be an entomologist to make logical buying decision. Taking this plant home would spread adult whiteflies easily to other plant material in your home. Whiteflies in the nursery industry are becoming increasingly difficult to control due to the insects ability to develop chemical resistance to pesticides. This can be a
TPIE: The indoor plant event of the year. I have answered multiple calls this past month from companies just breaking into the Tropical foliage retail industry. It's exciting to see movement and revitalization in our industry again. This question always comes up, Where do I get more information on other nurseries, plant varieties, and trucking? TPIE (Tropical Plant Industry Exhibition) January 18 –20 at the Broward County Convention Center in Ft. Lauderdale is the place to get yourself immersed in interior foliage. Here you can find new plant vendors with the latest trends along with hard goods, Point of Purchase strategies, and transportation solutions. This year's event is stacking up to b
For the Florida nurseryman spring is certainly in the air. Amazingly, plants don't spontaneously appear in the nursery come March. Were busy planting away on those staple spring items including Cordylines, Ferns, and Alocasias. Some items have already been in the soil for 3-4 months like 10" Cordylines and Foxtail Ferns. Why is this important to you the Garden Center retailer? We can't sell it if we don't have it! Prebooks for this spring material have become a standard. Economically, our industry buying trends would be shown as a "Bullish Market". Demand is certainly higher than 2-3 years ago. The past two years we have ran out of material half way through spring for speculative sales. Supp
