Show #17/7204. Beautiful, Practical Breeding Advancements In Plants

Plant Development

Eric has always been fascinated with the plant process of going from an idea, which oftentimes seems like something impossible, like we want this plant that blooms one time a year to a plant that will then bloom all year long. Many might say "That's not possible" but then, with a lot of meticulous attention to detail, oftentimes those ideas actually can become a reality. Since Natalie is someone who works in the world of plant breeding Eric would like to talk a little bit about where and how plants have changed and developed in the last 20 years. There have been a lot of incredible discoveries and innovations. Natalie would you walk us through where plants were several generations ago and then where we are today. Natalie thinks when it comes to breeding especially when it comes to breeding shrubs, it really is a very long game. Because when one talks about 10 years ago breeders had to be thinking about what do they want be introducing now, today. So, breeders had to look at where there were gaps in the market and look at what would be useful for gardeners that they don't already have within a certain species of plant and then start working on introducing new plants. They had to predict what would be helpful today. It’s not like an annual, where you can grow it from seed very quickly. They have to grow them from a small shrub, then trial them and then test them for up to 10 years to make sure they're going to be appropriate for a garden setting. Natalie thinks a lot of what gardeners are looking for these days, what people really want and what's trendy are dwarf cultivars. People like cultivars that are nice and small and of course they want cultivars that are going to flower more often. Flowering is really important to people, and why shouldn't it be? They want flowers that are bigger, flowers that are more saturated and basically plants that are going to bloom more dependably in the garden.