New Desert Escape Collection from Costa Farms

Home gardeners looking for bold, easy-care yards have a new option for landscaping—the Desert Escape collection from Costa Farms.

The new Desert Escape collection includes a variety of bold, no-fuss cacti and succulents ideal for consumers who seek attractive, low-maintenance landscapes. Desert Escape cacti and succulents, once established, are extremely drought tolerant and typically don’t require pruning or other maintenance.

Garden Writers Symposium "Round-up"- AZ style

As our plane flew into Tucson, AZ, the startling landscape opened up like parchment unfurled, its tawny hues of dappled sand and green-grey plants revealing a soothing palette of desert colors that bid us welcome.

Team GMG (Suzi, Stacey, Katie and I) had arrived for the 2012 Garden Writers (GWA) Symposium, to participate in the most highly anticipated event of the year for professional communicators in the lawn and garden industry.This year's 64th symposium was attended by some 600 print and broadcast garden communicators and bloggers from around the world and top growers and vendors showing off new plants and products.

Our car meandered and climbed up the winding drive that crested in front of a stunning pink-toned adobe and stucco hotel and conference center, with towering cactus, swollen succulents and scarlet desert flowers dotting the landscape like silent sentinels against a cobalt blue western sky.

Between the hectic pace of greeting old friends and new, we prepared for our dinner party at Maynard's Market and Kitchen, an historic converted train station turned upscale restaurant. Cool jazz and smooth voices entertained as we mingled with our media guests and clients: Fall Creek® Farm & Nursery, Hines Growers, RESCUE!® all natural pest control, Premier Tech Horticulture and American Beauties Native Plants/North Creek Nursery.

 

Friday and Saturday saw the exhibitors hall packed with colorful booths brimming with new plants and products, like an open-air market filled with heady earthy scents wafting throughout the aisles.

Crowds gathered around the new flowering Bloomtastic!™and Patio Tropics!™ plants from Hines Growers, ground-breaking new BrazelBerries™ small ornamental fruit collection from Fall Creek® Farm & Nursery, all natural pest control traps from RESCUE!®, stunning native plants from American Beauties Native Plants® and new sustainable PRO-MIX® planting and potting mixes from Premier Tech Horticulture.

"That couldn't be a crinum," exclaims a writer peering intensely at the new Bloomtastic! Crinum Purple   Dream. The leaves look almost purply black!" 

"You mean we can now grow thornless raspberries in containers right in our backyards?" gasps another as she points to the new thornless dwarf raspberry shrub, Raspberry Shortcake™, part of the BrazelBerries collection.

People studied and handled the new fly tape and eco-friendly stink bug traps at the RESCUE! booth and enjoyed a festive atmosphere at the Premier booth.

Workshops like "Let's Talk Plants" romanced the attendees with alluring plant images and  meaty phrases in a lightning speed dating style. Joe Gray , senior vice president of Hines Growers casually chatted about their new plant introductions with the attentive audience and moderators, charming the crowd with asides.

Along with the exhibits, there were scores of workshops and garden tours that included a special visit to a unique seed listing organization that I'll dig into deeper next time.

Ciao, AZ... we loved our visit.

Next year...hint, hint...

Oh, Canada!

~Lynne

Garden Media Group

Drought tolerant plants that can beat the heat!

The other day my garden buddy friend who lives in Dallas mentioned that Texas may begin water rationing due to the blazing heat that's causing temps to soar over 100 degrees.

She said that her garden plants are basically fried, and all that she's concentrating on saving now are herbs and a few bedding plants.

This heat wave is causing misery across the States. But for gardeners who've planted drought tolerant landscapes, hope springs eternal!

Varying from trees and shrubs to flowers and ornamental grasses and groundcovers these plants have an ability to handle drought conditions better than other varieties. Native plants that have adapted to your soil conditions and climate stand a better chance to survive dry conditions.

Plants like salvia and asters and witch hazel, butterfly bush and viburnum are good choices to withstand periods of drought. The photo is Eryngium 'Big Blue' from American Beauties Native Plants. Check out other natives plants that are perfect for your area at American Beauties Native Plants.

For those who love succulents and cactus, they come in a wide array of colors, shapes and sizes that are perfect as bedding plants and for indoors. They're just about indestructible, having adapted over time to handle conditions from deserts to scorching hot, humid climates.
I love them in containers to decorate any space. Outdoors they add interest and color to landscapes. Check out tips on growing and decorating with succulents and cacti from the plant experts at Costa Farms!

So, stay cool and let us know what drought-tolerant plants are still thriving for you!

~Lynne, GMG

Costa Farms Social Summit Blooms

Costa Farms Social Summit held in Miami earlier this month was a huge hit. Everyone was blown away by seeing hundreds of thousands of orchids, ferns, succulents, cacti and other tropical plants in one location.

Here are what a few of our friends had to say about their visit:

Justin Hancock, BHG.com editor, pictured here in orchid heaven, had this to say: "Last week I had the pleasure of traveling to Costa Farms, one of the coolest companies in the horticultural industry."

Justin says the the Costa Farms trial gardens, which are open to the public, are "definitely worth checking out if you’re in the area. "

Martha Stewart Living senior associate garden editor Stacey Hirvela (pictured here with me) wrote two blog posts. In her first post "Meet Maria Costa Smith, Stacey told us about Costa Farms' sustainable initiatives. "Maria told us about some of the things that they are doing to be a smarter, better source for plants. While they are working on addressing all of the sustainability issues I mentioned, it is the packaging that gardeners will notice most." Click here to read more and take Stacey's packaging survey.

In the second post, entitled "Sublime Reputation", Stacey talks more about the plants. "When I was down in Miami visiting Costa Farms, one of the most stunning sights was the sheer quantity and precision of their growing ranges. It's pretty unbelievable to be standing in a room with nearly three quarters of a million orchids, or 60 acres of nothing but Boston ferns." Stacey posted lots of great pictures to give you an idea of the scope of the Florida nursery.

Christopher Tidrick actually won a social media contest to attend, and we're glad he did. What a delight he is. He did a great post Plants with a Purpose, A Plantsman with Passion , calling the trip to the Costa Farms greenhouses "a visual experience so surreal, there aren't really words that can do it justice." But he found the words and really recapped everything -- from Costa Farms O2 for You educational program, to the Wall Street Journal's recent article to a wonderful profile of Mike Rimland.

Here we all are in our guayaberas, or Cuban wedding shirts for our closing dinner. What fun to be Cuban for a night!

Stacey, Garden Media Group