ELSEWHERE IN THE NEWS 



Speakers Announced 



Adrian Bloom, president of Blooms 

 of Bressingham Nursery, Norfolk, 

 England, and Roger swain, host of 

 PBS-TV's The Victory Garden, will be 

 keynote speakers at New England 

 Grows, held at the Hynes Conven- 

 tion Center in Boston on January 

 22-24 



Mr. Bloom will speak on the 

 topic of "New and Unusual Perenni- 

 als." As president of one of the 

 larger nurseries in Britain, he has 

 traveled widely looking for new 

 plants and has been instrumental 

 in setting up a worldwide plant in- 

 troduction network. He is the au- 

 thor of several horticultural books 

 and has led his company to 21 suc- 

 cessive gold medals at the Chelsea 

 Flower Show. 



Mr. Swain, biologist, gardener, 

 writer, and storyteller, will join mem- 

 bers of the Green Industry for a dis- 

 cussion of "Sound in the Garden." 



For more, call 508-653-3009. 



A New Location 



The New England Greenhouse Con- 

 ference, sponsored by New England 

 Floriculture, Inc., is going through 

 exciting changes. Its 1998 location, 

 Worcester's Centrum Center in 

 Worcester, Ma, is one of them. 



The scale and convenience of 

 the new location will make the con- 

 ference larger than ever. The three- 

 day (Oct 19-21) event promises 

 educational seminars, well-known 

 speakers, and a major trade show. 



The New Hampshire growers' 

 representative on conference board 

 is Henry Huntington. He can be 

 reached at 603-435-8361. 



Winners 



[Greenhouse Grower, November, 1997) 



Although Georgia's climate is very dif- 

 ferent from that of New Hampshire, 

 the four winners of the 1997 bedding 

 plant trials at the University of Geor- 



New England Grows Grants 



Nancy Adams 



Each year, New England Grows awards six $4,000 educational 

 grant awards to the New England Cooperative Extension sys- 

 tems. The requirement of this grant is that the funds must be used 

 for services to benefit commercial horticulture within each state. 



UNH Cooperative Extension used the New England Grows 

 grant award in 1997 to support a one-day educational program 

 entitled Cultivating Your Best Assets: Personnel Management for Or- 

 namental Businesses which was attended by 33 people represent- 

 ing 22 New Hampshire ornamental businesses, speakers covered 

 such topics as: writing an employee handbook, health and retire- 

 ment benefits, and motivating employees. 



Additional uses of the 1997 grant included the purchase of 

 a turf pest diagnostic CD-ROM for the UNH Plant Diagnostic 

 Clinic, purchase of the computer software Adobe Photoshop to as- 

 sist with digital imagery, and support for an upcoming series of 

 computer workshops developed for New Hampshire ornamentals 

 firms. 



Plans are now underway for utilizing the 1998 New England 

 Grows grant award. The UNH Cooperative Extension proposal in- 

 cludes developing a network of temperature-recording sensors 

 located throughout New Hampshire to monitor growing degree 

 days (GDD). GDD are used to monitor insect emergence which 

 allows those in the landscape/nursery/ornamental businesses to 

 more accurately time pest management strategies. This informa- 

 tion will be compiled and presented weekly on a telephone an- 

 swering system. 



The grant will also enable UNH Cooperative Extension to 

 develop and print a garden center evaluation handbook — a tool 

 for those businesses interested in improving their marketing and 

 customer relation efforts. Additional projects include purchasing 

 turf and ornamental references for county staff, developing ap- 

 plied mycorrhizal research for the nursery trade, and supple- 

 menting speaker reimbursement for grower educational programs. 



Nancy Adams, Extension liaison to the NHPGA, can be 

 reached at 603-679-5616. 



gia in Athens might also do well here. 



Zinnia 'Crystal White' (American 

 Takii) had clean white flowers show- 

 ing above light green leaves. The 

 foliage remained clean throughout 

 the season, starting to discolor only 

 in mid-September. 



Ornamental Pepper 'Pretty in 

 Purple' (lohnny's Selected Seed), 

 more branched, not as compact as 

 others, "looks good in the ground, 

 but is outstanding in a container 

 complimenting whites and pinks." 



Coleus 'Red Ruffles' (the Sun- 

 flower series, available though most 

 brokers) is an excellent plant for 

 full sun, keeping its deep red color 

 and ruffled chartreuse margins 

 throughout the season 



Scaveola Outback Purple Fan' 

 (Roger Elliott of Outback Nursery 

 and Paul Ecke), a tough plant that 

 "simply flowered and flowered and 

 flowered," was "without doubt the 

 best scaveola we've trialed." 



DECEMBER 1997 & JANUARY 1998 



