Summer solutions: Find those season extenders

Plants that go beyond simple spring showiness are a must when it comes to inspiring customers to keep planting and growing. Finding your summer-extending star performers, and niche novelties, is key to summer sales success.

Knowing how to best modify your production mix as the season progresses always comes down to knowing your target customers and what solutions they'll be seeking as summer approaches. Do they need instant impact via larger specimens, plants better able to tolerate planting during the heat, replacement color or perennials, or a shift to focusing on their edible garden after all their spring color needs are taken care of?

Ultimately, getting to know how both landscapers and garden center customers "garden" in your area during summer is your ticket to summer-extending offerings.

Summer showstoppers

I must admit, I'm loving all the new hardy hibiscus cultivars hitting the market. They are the happiest when it's the hottest! While tropical hibiscus always hit the spot when it comes to summer sales, offering newer perennial hibiscus that are just as, if not more, showy than the tropicals allows you to offer bigger perennials at a bigger price tag. Plus, the wide hardiness zone range of 4-9 makes these big-blooming beauties versatile across many different gardening climates.

It's been interesting to watch the breeding programs on these plants evolve over the last twenty-plus years. While breeders have been chasing a blue-flowered specimen, they've ended up with some pretty nice conventional-color cultivars along the way. 2021 was the National Garden Bureau's Year of the Perennial Hibiscus, so you can find valuable info on their website. Some of the newer series that include some stellar performers include the Summerific series from Proven Winners, Summer Spice series from J. Berry Nursery, and Head over Heels series from Star Roses and Plants, to name a few.

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Photo by Zoe Schaeffer on Unsplash

Source: HortiBiz