Cartwheel Strawberry Twist

Eye-catching Gerbera Cartwheel Strawberry Twist

In the world of highly colorful daisies the big three are Osteospermum, Gerbera, and Gazania. Osteos tend toward the cold and go dormant once the hot weather arrives. Gazanias like heat, just like Gerberas, but they are much shorter and often have stripes in the petals. Gerberas have long stems, big leaves, and the tremendous PR advantage of being a staple in the floral trade.

Hothouse Gerberas are protected from the elements, but we work outside in the weather. We need tough, durable plants that handle the climate, so we recommend the Garvinea series. However, there is another mix, Cartwheel Strawberry Twist, that’s both eye-catching and garden worthy. Buyers often fly by it so we’ve showcased this double Gerbera on the cover of our Spring Idea Book.

You should be receiving two Idea Books in the mail, one for Early Spring and one for Spring. The books serve as plant catalogs for our product line, but they are also designed as idea generators—tools you can use to attract more customers to your business.

In our Early Spring Idea Book, we talk about Dappled Pansy gardens, a design effect made easy by the fact that many Pansies do the work for us. Their colors jump from flower to flower, creating sweeps of moving color in a mass planting. We name 13 different cultivars that have this effect across warm and cool colors, all shipping from Diefenbacher Greenhouses this spring.

Our Spring Idea Book features an important improvement to classic Impatiens, the Beacon series. These Impatiens have been armored up against downy mildew disease, so the series signals the return of a very popular plant category.

In the same book, we showcase ten highly desirable plants not commonly found in the channel, and even more bee-friendly annuals for pollinator gardens. Throughout the pages we’ve highlighted 36 plants that always make a garden more interesting. We hope you enjoy reading about all of these topics and discussing them with your new and returning customers.