Making Mother's Day
Pages in this article:
By Mother’s Day, Surfinia Petunia 'Mini Brilliant Pink' hanging baskets, potted on Week 3 or Week 6 required 3 ft2 of bench space. When lifted from the bench the stems were 32 and 23 inches in length, respectively. Plants of each of the two potting dates had over 100 flowers. The baskets planted on Week 3 had been marketable since Week 14 (April 7), five weeks before Mother’s Day. The Week 6 plants had finished a week later on April 14, four weeks before Mother’s Day.
Although the plants were high quality they did not receive a rating of “5” to reflect their overgrowth (based on our marketability definition) and lack of shipability. Don’t get us wrong - these hanging baskets were beautiful but impossible to ship and still maintain a high quality product. Another problem with this product (especially the Week 3 plants) is that there is much less growth and flower potential remaining for the customer to receive the fulfillment of watching it grow.
Surfinia Petunia 'Mini Brilliant Pink' baskets potted on Week 9 were marketable one week before Mother’s Day. They required 2 ft2 of bench space, had 15 inches of cascading stem length and an average of 40 flowers. Plants were given the highest quality rating - a “5” especially for the retail market. Plants were somewhat large for wholesaling and shipping.
Plants of Surfinia Petunia 'Mini Brilliant Pink' potted on Week 12 required 1.5 ft2 of bench space, had a cascading stem length of 12 inches, an average of 2 flowers per plant, and were marketable the week of Mother’s Day, but not in time for long term shipping. Plants had low flower numbers but suffered less damage during simulated shipping.
Surfinia Petunia 'Mini Brilliant Pink', potted on Week 15 did not meet the Mother’s Day market but finished three weeks afterwards. At Mother’s Day they were requiring 1 ft2 of bench space and the foliage had just begun to cascade. Plants had not flowered, therefore they were given a low quality rating.
Although Scaevola 'New Wonder' was slightly smaller and slower growing and Tapien Verbena 'Blue Violet' was faster growing the results were very similar for all three species. The Week 9 planting date was the latest date to reliably make the Mother’s Day Market if you are shipping product. Earlier plant dates produced plants that were past marketability and too large to ship, later plant dates finished in shorter amounts of time but were not ready to ship by Mother’s Day.
Next Page: Shipping Woes
| 
