Knowledge base
Discover everything about the products and services of HilverdaFlorist
Our knowledge base offers you both inspirational and informative content about our assortment and services. Learn everything about our brands, breeding developments, our team, innovations and much more. Together with our team, we develop reliable information that we are happy to share with you.
Top 5 unique garden plants
Looking for something truly unique for the coming season? A real eye-catcher in the garden? We are here to inspire you! From extremely large flowers to extraordinary colour combo’s: these five varieties from our wide assortment are sure to stand out in any garden. Scroll on and find your favourite.
Read moreHoliday crops: trends and developments
This content was originally created for the Greenhouse Grower. Getting ready for Christmas is never early enough! At the request of the Greenhouse Grower, HilverdaFlorist described its insights on Christmas and New Year, and festive crops to grow for sales during this season. Trends for holiday crops Sustainability Like all year round nowadays, we see sustainability becoming increasingly important during the holiday season as well. This is something that is not completely new, we have been seeing this for several years but believe it will become more and more important in the coming year(s). Scents – going beyond visual appeal Incorporating a multisensory approach to holiday season decors is also something we see more of. Think of scented candles coming with endless festive fragrances for the ultimate cozy feeling. Let’s respond to this with scented crops to anticipate the next trend at the same time: Embracing nature Thereby, besides the tradition of Christmas trees, we also see consumers increasingly bringing the outdoors inside during the holiday season. The beauty of nature is more appreciated and more natural decorations are chosen. An excellent opportunity for holiday crops. Letting growers stand out First, growers obviously need to be able to respond to trends and answer consumer demands with their assortment. To help them do this, HilverdaFlorist as a breeder develops the most sustainable crops possible that require the least amount of attention and resources to grow. In addition, it is important that we can provide growers with the information they need to further market their products. This includes information for, for example, calculating footprints, cultivation insights and shelf life. Besides sustainability, crops should at all times provide an added value that a grower can deliver to impact the decisive consumer choice. In the abundant offerings during this period, a product must have just that little bit extra to stand out. To do this, growers can think of a unique angle such as scented products to respond to this trend, or tell the story about sustainability and how you as a consumer can contribute to this with a conscious choice. Consumer thoughts As mentioned at the trends, we believe that consumers are looking for more sustainable options. Not only for non-plant decorations, but also in holiday crops. Think of products that contribute to a festive feeling, but which give joy even after the season or for a longer time. Besides the trends, since consumers shopping for holiday crops are mainly looking for a festive experience, they may not be the biggest gardening enthusiasts. For them it is important that the crops are easy to maintain. HilverdaFlorist holiday crops HilverdaFlorist might not offer your top-of-mind holiday crops. Although HilverdaFlorist offers the much-loved Helleborus for this season, there are also some more out-of-the-box options. Let us take you through our range, in line with the earlier mentioned trends and (grower and customer) needs. Helleborus Awesome!® Nagano The Helleborus Awesome!® Series offers Niger types Helleborus from tissue culture. This Helleborus, known as the “Christmas Rose” is already a big hit during the holiday season in Europe. Helleborus Awesome!® starts flowering in mid-October, therefore it has a perfect timing for winter holiday sales. This Helleborus from tissue culture is highly uniform and produces more flowers, compared to seed-raised Helleborus. Awesome!® is suitable for controlled growth and extremely heat and cold tolerant. Its ability to thrive during the colder months and its abundance of flowers make it an attractive option for those seeking a touch of natural beauty during the holiday season. We are happy to welcome Nagano to our Awesome!® Series. Nagano meets your needs when it comes to a high flower count and a magnificent appearance. The first flowers appear in mid-October. Dianthus Sunflor® Dianthus Sunflor® is a versatile series, perfect for garden, patio planters and indoor use during the holiday season. Sunflor® offers plenty of options to compose a varied year-round program, with exciting colors for the holiday season. Its outstanding cold tolerance enables cool production temperatures. Sunflor® has short cultivation time and a tight bloom window, for easy planning and bench-run production. Dianthus Sunflor® seamlessly fits in with the fragrance trend. In this series you will find scented flowers, often described as warm spice, sweet vanilla or clove. In keeping with the holiday season, we recommend Sunflor® Cosmos! This beautiful, white potted Dianthus fits into any Christmas decor. When it comes to sustainability, consumers can enjoy these during Christmas and plant them in the garden when the temperatures are rising. In here, their scents will attract friendly pollinators! Read more about scented Dianthus here. Flori Line® potted Gerberas The Flori Line® Series offers seed-raised Gerberas with the most vivid colors and well-defined two tones on the market. You can count on its fast flowering and laser-sharp uniformity in timing and plant size. Flori Line® offers various festive colored varieties that create endless possibilities to boost holiday sales. Inspire retail and consumers with red and white (bi)colors or create themed mixes. Flori Line® offers a wide range of pot sizes, from Micro to Giant. This is a sustainable choice consumers will enjoy throughout the year. From a sunny spot in the windowsill during the cooler months, to the patio during summer. Some of our holiday season picks are the bicolored Eyecatcher Red BC, White BC and Red BC. These white, red and white/red bicolor varieties match the traditional Christmas decors.
Read morePantone Colour of the Year: Peach Fuzz
Pantone recently launched the Colour of the Year 2024: PANTONE 13-1023 Peach Fuzz! “PANTONE 13-1023 Peach Fuzz captures our desire to nurture ourselves and others. It’s a velvety gentle peach thone whose all-embracing spirit enriches mind, body, and sole”, says PANTONE®. Pantone is a company that publishes colour codes and announces a colour as its annual colour each year, based on fashion, social events, cinema, and more. As HilverdaFlorist, we are looking forward to a year of Peach Fuzz and are happy to share a selection of our colour matching varieties with you. Standard Carnation Peach Wonder It looks like Peach Wonder was made especially for this trend! However, this flower has been part of the Standard Carnation range for some time. The large, ruffled flowers with multiple petals create depth in this unique colour. Like the colour, the classic yet modern Carnations themselves effortlessly bridge the gap between youthful and timeless. Exactly as Pantone intended with the colour.
Read moreDiscover the best Dianthus for a scent-sational garden
Dianthus is known for its great visual appeal, for adding long-lasting colours and extraordinary flower shapes to homes and gardens. It has been a gardener’s favourite for centuries, offering resistant and care-free flowering plants that are fairly easy to grow and maintain. A true bonus is their lovely scent, often described as warm spice, sweet vanilla or clove. Fragrance in the garden adds another layer to stimulate the senses. It lifts your spirit and can bring back sweet memories. Nothing is more memorable than a scent… and Dianthus is the perfect choice to make a garden smell amazing. Stop and smell the flowers The scent of Dianthus mainly comes from its essential oils that are stored in the flower petals. These oils consist of a mix of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), of which benzenoids (especially eugenol) and terpenoids are more prominent in Dianthus. The combination and concentration of these compounds varies between species and varieties. With a genus of over 300 species, the scent note and intensity of Dianthus varieties may vary a lot. As we all know, the main reason for fragrance is to attract pollinators. Nature, in its cleaver ways, has designed plants to release their fragrance more when the specific pollinator they are aiming for is active. In Dianthus, some species that aim for pollination by bees and butterflies may have a stronger scent during the day, while other species rely on moths for their pollination and have a more intense smell during the night. Weather conditions as temperature, light and humidity can also be of influence to the amount of scent that is released, causing flowers to smell differently in the morning compared to later in the day or at night. Also, plant age and flowering stage play a role, and not to mention the personal scent perception. In our own Dianthus trials we have noticed first-hand how personal the sense of smell really is. Our breeders, growers, assortment and area sales managers, and clients review our varieties on several occasions during the year. Some of us have experienced a more significant scent on particular varieties in the morning hours, while others have a consistent experience throughout the day.
Read more3-Season crops for more sales | Lawn & Garden Retailer
For the June issue of Lawn & Garden Retailer “Planning for the Fall,” Stef and Mazanne (Sales & Product Representatives USA) were interviewed on how retailers can promote shoulder season varieties. Read on for their insights or read the full article here. Of course you can create a complex planting program for crops to match to get a border flowering for three seasons, but what is easier then offering plants that do all that by themselves without too much fuss! Why not create a stable flower supply for all key spots in the garden throughout all three seasons and occasionally add some seasonal plants to the mix. Convenience and value for money are the two mayor motivators for buying three-season plants. Can you talk about some of the benefits these crops offer? At HilverdaFlorist we are all about offering those well-needed items to let you stand out from the crowd and enable you to draw year-round interest. By offering a variety of series like Garvinea® Garden Gerberas, Salvia Salgoon®, Alstroemeria Summer Paradise® and Echinacea MOOODZ®, we assure gardeners of long seasons full of colour. These series can be planted in the garden early in spring, hold up well during summer heat and keep on flowering until frost. By planting our Alstroemeria, Echinacea and Garden Gerbera series in early autumn, the soil is still warm – which encourages strong root development, followed by a winter rest, before shining a thriving in springtime. These perennials get even better every year! A big additional benefit of these long-lasting, robust series is that they become less-demanding once established.
Read moreTips for small space gardens
Every garden is different and requires a different approach to make it look as beautiful as it can. Since we believe that limited space should never limit your creativity in gardening, we are here to help you unlock the incredible potential of your compact garden! Whether you have a cozy balcony, a petite patio or even just a sunny windowsill, we have the perfect options to transform your garden into a flourishing oasis. Container gardening Containers are great for small spaces. Use various sizes and shapes to create depth and a liveliness. Provide containers with good drainage so that your plants can get rid of excess water when needed. Extra tip: choose lightweight containers so you can move them easily! HilverdaFlorist offers various series designed for container gardening. Check out our patio Alstroemeria Inticancha® Series or have a look at our double flowered Gerbera Sundayz® Series.
Read moreCelebrate the Year of the Salvia with the Salgoon® Series
Colourful spikes waving in the wind, delicate scents, and the soothing sounds of buzzing and chirping… Salvia brings a calming and relaxing vibe to any outdoor living space. It speaks to gardeners and landscapers who want to create low-maintenance, eco-friendly environments. With their natural colours and vertical textures Salvias offer a stylish twist on Mediterranean and cottage garden decors. As Salvia fits in a whole range of ongoing garden trends, it makes total sense for Fleuroselect to make it its mission this year to educate, inspire and dazzle garden lovers worldwide with the beauty of Salvia. The international Home Garden Association (based in the Netherlands) has declared 2023 as The Year of the Salvia. HilverdaFlorist is proud breeder of the successful Salvia Salgoon® Series. We support Fleuroselect and celebrate the Year of the Salvia with extensive plantings of our Salgoon® Series in public parks and gardens in England, Germany, the Netherlands and France. Together we show you the latest varieties and the unique features of our extraordinary Salvias. Find out more about Salvia Salgoon® and its power to bring colour and liveliness to your garden. Visit the most amazing parks and gardens in Europe and find Salvia Salgoon® Egapark in Erfurt, Germany Insel Mainau in Mainau, Germany RHS Garden Harlow Carr in Harrogate, United Kingdom RHS Garden, Hyde Hall in Chelmsford, Essex, United Kingdom De Garden in Enkhuizen, the Netherlands Jardin des Plantes in Paris, France Are you visiting any of these gardens this season? Don’t forget to SNAP, TAG and SHARE your Salvia selfie using #salviaSalgoon / @hilverdaflorist and we will make sure to repost. Why choose Salvia Salgoon® for your garden The Salvia family consists of over 900 species. Salvia Salgoon® is an interspecific hybrid – the result of our breeders combining the best genetic material of different Salvia species to create a series with unique characteristics. The Salgoon® Series truly makes a difference when it comes to garden performance. Each variety of the series forms strong, resilient plants with many firm, well-filled flower spikes. Salgoon® is known to be drought and heat tolerant, and flowers profusely from spring to frost. Growers can produce Salgoon® in a short time, so you will be able to find them in garden centers as one of the earliest Salvias, from mid spring onwards. The Salgoon® Series contains a spectacular range of colours, varying from deep purple to lavender, blue and pink. Due to Salgoon®’s dark green foliage and contrasting calyxes, these vibrant colours stand out even more. Take notice, as you are bound to see Salvia Salgoon® Lake Garda and Strawberry Lake pop up everywhere this season. Both varieties match perfectly with Pantone’s 2023 Color of the Year – Viva Magenta.
Read moreHow to grow your own liners with Garvinea® Garden Gerberas
Times have past that starting a cultivation journey with stage 3 tissue culture plants should be considered complicated, difficult and only for specialized self-rooting nurseries. As the benefits of tissue culture plants are obvious, input and shipping costs keep increasing and growers keep developing themselves, starting plants from stage 3 TC is gaining popularity and becoming more common. For growers with little or no experience with stage 3 planting, Garvinea® is the product you want to start off with. HilverdaFlorist supplies stage 3 plants that are ready to enter stage 4 for acclimating, hardening and creating liners. You won’t get a fragile, little clump of cells. Garvinea® stage 3 plants are healthy, uniform, vigorous and resilient, with substantial roots and leaves. This makes transplanting them into liners easy, quick and truly doable for growers who are already familiar with starting crops from URC or seed. This article was originally created for Greenhouse Grower.
Read moreWhat’s happening in breeding technology at HilverdaFlorist
There have been many advances in breeding technology over the past years, including the development of new techniques for improving the genetics and characteristics of new varieties. The HilverdaFlorist team is always focused on innovation and optimization which makes it possible to breed more efficiently, sustainable and with greater precision, allowing for the development of crops that can help to meet the needs of the market. Developing new varieties HilverdaFlorist has a wide range of Pot-, Patio- and Garden varieties in Alstroemeria, Dianthus, Echinacea, Gerbera, Helleborus and Salvia. The assortment consists of crops that have been bred for decades to relatively new products. Products that are recently presented to the market require different attention compared to the crops that have been around for a longer time. Gerbera and Dianthus are crops that have been part of the product range for decades. The breeders of HilverdaFlorist have been working on these varieties for years. As a result of the high level of performance of these crops improvements might sometimes be relatively small, but certainly not less important. With crops like these HilverdaFlorist focuses on improvement by consolidation. With relatively new series such as Echinacea MOOODZ® and Salvia Salgoon®, the focus is more on fundamental aspects and establishing these crops in the market. This creates opportunities for potential growth. To respond to this, HilverdaFlorist sets these markets as key areas of focus at this time. The introduction of new, improved crops is very important for HilverdaFlorist. The team of breeders is constantly looking for new opportunities to diversify and differentiate. Main goals and challenges One of the most important themes at the moment is sustainability. This includes improving genetic resistance of plants. Genetic resistance is a sustainable solution to deal with the increasing pressure of diseases and pests. HilverdaFlorist strives to develop robust plants that can withstand various circumstances and survive even longer with fewer resources. It is important to work more from a sustainability and resilience perspective. When working towards more sustainable products, there are of course challenges. Working on genetic resistance takes a lot of time and bioassays often are difficult, since they can give a lot of variation. But, nonetheless it is something we focus on and strive to optimize. Optimalisation for outdoor growth HilverdaFlorist focuses on optimizing outdoor growth for the series Gerbera Garvinea®, Echinacea MOOODZ® and Salvia Salgoon®. This contributes to the resistance to diseases, pests, and stress factors. HilverdaFlorist is working on genetic compactness which can have important implications for plant growth and development, as well as for the plant’s ability to adapt to different environmental conditions. This is done without the use of PGR treatments. To achieve this, more outdoor trials are being set up. By doing this, robustness and resilience in the crops can be better selected. This way, HilverdaFlorist strives to test the value of the plant, as it is grown by the consumer, in order to deliver the ultimate and reliable product for the consumer. Molecular marker breeding technology HilverdaFlorist values the traditional art of breeding, but is always up to date when it comes to innovative techniques. Currently, there are developments with marker-assisted breeding. This is a technique that uses molecular markers to identify and select plants with desirable characteristics. These markers are then used to breed plants with the desired characteristics by selecting individuals with the relevant. This method makes it possible to work more precise and to produce plants with improved characteristics such as disease resistance more efficiently and effectively. Want to know more about what’s happening at HilverdaFlorist? Keep an eye on our knowledge base for all the latest news!
Read moreGarden trends for 2023
Garden trends come and go over the years. Every year brings fresh and innovative garden trends to transform your garden or patio into a true paradise. In this article, we will discuss garden trends for 2023 that catched our eye. Let’s have a look into several movements that are shaping the world of plant breeding. Sustainable gardening One of the most significant trends in gardening today is sustainability. Our society is increasingly looking for ways to reduce environmental impact and create gardens that are more self-sustaining. HilverdaFlorist is focussing on sustainable products to contribute to a flourishing, green future. This is done by optimizing the genetic resistance of plants. Genetic resistance is a sustainable solution to deal with the increasing pressure of diseases and pests. HilverdaFlorist strives to develop robust plants that can withstand various circumstances and survive even longer with fewer resources. It is important to work more from a sustainability and resilience perspective. Pollinator gardens There is a growing concern about the disappearance of pollinators such as bees and butterflies. Gardeners are increasingly looking for ways to support these important creatures. Pollination gardens are becoming increasingly popular to encourage these little visitors into our gardens. Salvia, for example, is a true pollinator magnet. HilverdaFlorist is proud breeder of the successful Salvia Salgoon® Series. As diversity is key, combine Salvias with other pollinator favorites like, Echinacea MOOODZ® and Garvinea® Garden Gerberas. Both series offer flowers with plenty of nectar and pollen, and a wide range of colours.
Read more3 Seasons of Beauty with Garvinea®
Want to experiment with different colours or buy a plant you haven’t seen before? Be inspired by the one and only true garden Gerbera: Garvinea®. Garvineas are to be similar to the well-known cut flower Gerberas you will find at your florists. The big difference is that Garvinea® is a true garden plant, which you can put in soil or in a container. Outdoors it produces an enormous amount of flowers during three seasons of the year – from early Spring to the first frost. From Gerbera to Garvinea® Although Gerbera and Garvinea® are different in use and application, they have the same origin. The ancestors of the famous cut flower Gerbera are originally from Asia, South Africaand Tasmania. They mainly grow in areas with humid summers and dry winters. These colourful composites are also called ‘African daisies’. The first Gerbera was discovered in 1737, but it only started to raise interest at the end of the 19 th century in Europe when enthusiastic plant hunters discovered the species Gerbera jamesonii in South Africa. Since then they have become far removed from there ‘roots’, but are definitely here to stay! Gerbera and Dianthus are crops that have been part of the product range for decades. This Gerbera, with orange-yellow flowers, is the mother of all cut flower and pot plant Gerberas. With the Rose and Tulip there are among the largest flower culture export products from the Netherlands. The Geberas are cultivated using sophisticated methods and are specially selected for their performance in a vase and because of this they are totally unsuitable for outdoor use in soil. However, by re-discovering Gerberas which grow in nature, where exactly they grow in the wild and which properties botanic species have, we have managed to develop a new type of Gerbera that is indeed suitable for garden use. This hardy Gerbera was named Garvinea®. Garvinea® is a bred variety, that doesn’t occur in nature, but it does reunite the properties of several Gerbera species from all over the world.
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