Stars of the show

California Spring Trials returns this year with exciting new varieties and colors for the 2023-24 year. Check out some of the highlights for this year’s stops here, and don’t forget to mark your calendars for Wednesday, March 29, to Saturday, April 1.

To view the full list of stops and make appointments, visit the CAST website at 2023cast.com. And for many more previews of the plants you can see as you travel along the California coast, visit us at bit.ly/2023CAST. You can also sign up for coverage directly in your inbox at bit.ly/GardenCenterDaily.

American Takii

Photos courtesy of respective breeders

is a new interspecific Zinnia series that is floriferous with a naturally compact and branching habit. Excellent heat tolerance. Early flowering Belize is ideal for packs and pots. Thrives in containers and gardens. Available in Cherry, Orange, Rose and White.

is a new double-type interspecific zinnia series with the same outstanding characteristics of Zinnia Belize. Available in Orange, Rose, Scarlet, White, Yellow and Formula Mix, three of the varieties have earned Fleuroselect awards. Orange and Rose are Fleuroselect Novelty winners and Scarlet is a Fleuroselect Gold Medal winner.

Ball FloraPlant

Lantana PassionFruit is a new trailing, “spreading” lantana with abundant flowers and dark green foliage. It has the perfect habit for hanging baskets. Produces multicolor flowers that are ideal for monocolor containers. Best of all, it never cycles out of flower.

Ball Ingenuity

is a one-of-a-kind hydrangea that is low-growing, making it perfect for bowl use. An ideal option as a table centerpiece indoors or outside on a patio in a sheltered area. These should be transplanted into an 8-inch bowl for growing on/finishing.

Burpee Home Gardens

Tomato Love Gourmansun Sunrise indeterminate-type plants produce beautiful, flaming yellow bicolor beefsteak tomatoes. Everyone will fall in love with Tomato Love and its great-tasting, heart-shaped fruit. Approximately 85 days to harvest. Plants have disease resistance for better home gardener success.

Darwin Perennials

series is improved for 2023 with better flower coverage that makes a bold statement. These new deluxe varieties bring the branching, high flower count and timing of the Sombrero Series to the Double Scoop line. More compact than the typical double-flowered echinacea with more reliable first-year flowering.

PanAmerican Seed

Petchoa Caliburst Yellow is a vibrant yellow petchoa from seed that provides an economical option for growers wanting the same easy production in large containers and the intensity of vegetative petunia colors. Caliburst has a naturally compact/medium habit without the need for PGRs, and makes a great mixed container component.

Selecta One

Petchoa EnViva Pink features the best attributes of both petunias and calibrachoas. The EnViva series offers large, colorful flowers that can be used in containers and landscapes. Plants have excellent cold/hot/rain weather performance and a more controlled habit compared to market standards. Launches with four colors.

Benary

The first interspecific multiflora begonia, Stonehedge offers extreme vigor and branching — growing up to 48 inches. The excellent heat tolerance, well-branched, mounded habit and eye-catching bronze foliage make Stonehedge the perfect premium product for landscapes and large containers.

Danziger

These new Angelonia angustifolia put on a show from spring through summer. 2024 will see several new colors including ALONIA BIG Cherry. This variety’s bright fuchsia blooms captured attention at Danziger’s InnovationFest, quickly becoming a customer favorite. All of the ALONIA series offer great heat tolerance and an upright habit. They can be grown in small pots but continue to gain size in the garden.

Danziger is adding a little spark to the COLIBRI Calibrachoa series with a new special pattern. COLIBRI Spark Purple features a sunburst-style eye that adds depth and intrigue. This early flowering, controlled growth series requires very little PGRs, making it the perfect choice for small pot production and tidy hanging baskets.

Dümmen Orange

A bold addition to the coleus collection, Coleus Downtown NYC Nights is a fine-textured, two-toned foliage and compact habit that gives small spaces a bold look. Its late flowering, medium-compact vigor allows for finishing in quarts and gallons. Durable box shipping excels for e-commerce sales. For use indoors or out. One of six bold colors in the new Downtown series.

 

The new Revelation Series will become the standard-bearer for uniform timing and habit in dahlias. Each of Revelation’s five new colors is exploding with large, semi-double flowers held aloft on strong stems above dark-green foliage. Revelation’s vigor makes these dahlias an excellent choice for both large containers and landscape plantings. Pink is especially pretty with its occasionally occurring bicolored petals.

Green Fuse Botanicals

An exciting new addition to the Blanket Petunia family, Double Surprise produces a combination of color from a single plant. Flowers of silver, white, purple, lavender and even bicolors pop all season long! This milliflora double petunia will self-clean and will envelop the landscape all growing season.

The all-new Arctotis MAJEC Yellow/Red produces the brightest-colored flowers you have ever seen! With silver foliage, the mounding plant looks brilliant in containers as well as the landscape. Daylength neutrality makes programming a breeze. This series is well-known for its low water requirements for consumer success.

Hem Genetics

Ageratum houstonianum Kona Blue is Hem’s most compact Ageratum, part of their LowGrow line of products that require no PGRs. More compact than the Aloha series, Kona is ideal for pack use and for 4-inch pot production. It has good seed production and produces very uniform seedlings for plug trays.

Antirrhinum/Snapdragon DoubleShot Orange Bicolor is a 2023 AAS National Winner for both garden performance and for container use. Heavily branched plants with strong stems hold the deep orange flowers with white throats perfectly, ideal for height in flower beds and in mixed containers. Flowers also hold up well when cut for indoors.

HilverdaFlorist

Garvinea is the only true garden gerbera! With great weather tolerance, Garvinea provides lots of happy colors from early spring until the first frost. Gerbera Garvinea Sweet Joy is a brand-new variety in this series. With its bright yellow flowers, Sweet Joy brings joy to any garden and delivers great performance.

Patio Gerberas are unique voluminous plants with stunning large flowers up to 6 inches! New to the Patio Gerbera assortment is the beautiful two-tone Patio Gerbera Monte Viso with a semi-double flower. In large pots, Patio Gerberas are impressive and will bloom for months on a patio or terrace.

Sakata

SuperCal Premium Red Maple is an exciting new color in this popular series! With large, iridescent flowers of scarlet to an orange glow and a well-branched, mounding plant habit. SuperCal Premium Red Maple has exceptional weather tolerance making it an excellent choice for a season extender (early spring through autumn).

SunPatiens Compact Red Candy has large, vibrant bicolor flowers with high retail appeal. The dark bronze foliage provides excellent contrast. Its strong vigor and excellent heat tolerance allow continuous flowers, full sun to part shade, for three seasons.

Schoneveld Breeding

Super Serie Djix is a gorgeous cyclamen that is available in three colors — red, wine red and the new color salmon pink with eye. This novelty plant is known for its unique flower shape and number of blooms.

Ranunculus Sprinkles is a spring bloomer that grows out to a uniformly built plant with strong flower stems. Customers can choose their favorite color out of a broad selection.

Suntory

Sun Parasol Giant varieties are the true, classic vining mandevilla with large flowers. Giant Peach Sunrise produces gorgeous, multi-tonal blooms that start out dark peach and lighten with age. Throats are golden yellow with a red-orange ring. Perfect for premium trellised containers.

We’re seeing more red in Senetti with breakthrough colors! Red options to date include Ruby Red and White Red Heart (white daisies with red centers). The new Senetti Red Halo has larger red daisy flowers with red centers surrounded by a bright white ring. Excellent for early spring impulse sales.

Syngenta

Talavera is a new series of coleus featuring sun-tolerant varieties that maintain color and foliage patterns in both sun and shade. It features late flowering selections for tidy, non-bolting plants in the garden.

New for 2023, the Adora Begonia series boasts striking dark foliage and masses of petite double flowers. Its well-branched, mounded habits work across a range of container sizes and thrive in both sun and shade applications.

Westhoff

The new Hotpot Lobelia series has all of the amazing attributes of the Hot breeding program, but now in a smaller, early flowering form, making it perfect for nearly PGR-free production for small pots. In conjunction with the original Hot series and the recently introduced Hot+ series, Westhoff can offer a lobelia solution for all growers.

Helianthus Sunmazing Yellow is a breakthrough in sunflower breeding. Not only are plants heavily branching, heat- and drought-tolerant, but they continuously re-bloom all summer long. Large plants are ideal for a late spring/early summer patio planter, or even better, planted in the landscape where they are covered in blooms all season long.