Earlier this year, Greenhouse Canada correspondent, Rodger Tschanz, travelled to sunny California for the 2025 Spring Trials.

Under bright, clear skies, in late March, plant breeders showcased their new and improved genetics for the 2025-26 seasons. 

For the past several years, Greenhouse Canada, has been lucky enough to be invited to tag along with the Canadian contingent from Ball Horticultural, which tours the numerous CAST sites across the state on a bus over the course of four days. A huge thank-you goes out to our hosts and tour guides at Ball who always make us feel like part of the team.

The following is a very brief look at some of the introductions and advancements in plant genetics we feel may excite Canadian producers and consumers alike.

Editor’s note: Due to space limitations, this is Part 1 of a two-part series. Part 2 will be published at a later date.

Day 1
Darwin Perennials

Day 1 began with the Darwin Perennials (DP) Spring Showcase display. DP presented solutions for garden centres looking to maintain perennial colour on benches throughout the spring buying season. One display highlighted the new Candy Cloud (1) series of phlox. This low-growing, mounded Phlox hybrid blooms after Phlox subulate (i.e. the Spring Splash series) and before Salvia nemerosa (i.e. the Marvel series). Its launch has four colours in shades of pink to purple. Candy Cloud is labelled as a ‘mid-spring bloomer.’

With an eye towards continuous colour within a genus, DP presented a display of three different series of Penstemon. Of the three series, Rock Candy (2) was presented as the earliest to bloom. Breeding is currently underway to improve the Rock Candy series with a little more vigour to allow it to fill out 16 cm (2.5-quart) containers. Pink and Coral are two of the improved colours with a larger plant size. Hardy to Zone 5.

Mountain Treats (3) is a brand new, medium height Penstemon series that blooms sequentially after the Rock Candy series. This series is an upgrade to the Quartz series. Available in five colours ranging from red, to pink to purple, this series will flower for approximately six weeks. Plant height ranges from 51-61 cm. As it is only hardy to Zone 6, its use as a perennial will be limited in Canada.

DP has added a new chartreuse coloured Heuchera to improve its Carnival series. Lime Aid is being replaced with the new Lime Zest (4). Lime Aid didn’t have the vigour of the other colours in the series; Lime Zest matches the other colours for vigour much better. It has the vigour to fill out a 20 cm (1 gallon) pot. Unlike other members of the series, this selection can’t handle high light levels. If light exposure is too high, it will start to produce red venation. This selection will bloom early summer without vernalization. (Hardy to Zone 4)

DP has added two new introductions of Brunnera to its collection. Frost King (5) is seen as an upgrade to Alexander’s Great with much less leaf blackening than its comparisons because of its big, tough leaves. The second introduction is Frost Magic (6) which is an improvement on the older cultivar Looking Glass.  This medium-sized leaf selection has a tender leaf and as a result cannot tolerate full sun. Both cultivars are hardy to Zone 4.

Morel

French cyclamen breeder, Morel, has a new mini cyclamen series. Macaron (7) is available in eight colours and all have excellent homogeneity in habit between the colours. All colours in this series have numerous small leaves and a high flower count.


Ball FloraPlant

Ball FloraPlant introduced the new Solera (8) interspecific geranium in 2024/25. For 2026 it has added the new colours Dark Red and Purple. Dark Red is the top-selling colour. A white colour will be available in 2026. This series is said to be comparable to the Mojo series.

The Glimmer series of double impatiens will be replacing the Fiesta series for 2026. In addition to having beautiful rose-like blooms, the Glimmer impatiens series is highly resistant to Impatiens Downy Mildew. Two new colours for 2026 include Purple Stardust and Strawberry Sparkle.

Selecta One

Selecta One has a long history of dahlia breeding with more new releases for the coming season. I spotted the hot colours of Venti Fireburst (9) from across the room. This anemone flower had a yellow centre and scarlet red perimeter. Venti Pink Burst (10) is another anemone flower form, this one with solid pink/lavender colouration. 

Crystal Pink is a new colour in the Headliner petunia (11) series. The presenter commented on how this selection “is perfect every time.” This means that individual blooms always resist fading, always hold up to the weather, is always a perfectly shaped plant and is always perfectly covered in bloom.

The new Osteospermum series, FlowerPower Petite (12) is more compact than FlowerPower Compact and is very early to bloom. Its naturally easy-to-control vigour is perfect for 10 cm (4”) pot production. In Europe the breeder code for Petite Purple was Purple252.  Since this plant made such an impression on the Netherlands market, the European series name is Type 252.

PanAmerican Seed

As PanAmerican Seed celebrates the 30th anniversary of the Wave petunia introduction this year, it continues to add to the depth and breadth of the Wave family. New this year is Easy Wave Pink Pearl (13). In the Shock Wave series, there are lots of changes. Shock Wave is the petite flowering member of the Wave family. Two cultivars are being upgrades and two are being added. Shock wave flowers have great rebound ability from heavy watering and rainfall. Upgrades to red and deep purple have improved their cold durability and photo period bloom response to 9.5 hours. New colours include Violet and Rose Vein which was the favourite of the presenter because of its more controlled growth habit.  

In the world of Wave pansies is the new Top Wave (14) series. It is the “big sister” of the Cool Wave series with a 25 per cent larger bloom size and a mounding habit on the bench that will eventually spread in baskets. Its series name derives from having bloom coverage across the top of the plant. This plant can be sold in litre-sized pots or in baskets. Our presenter liked the Pink Shades colour most but was also excited about the solid orange colour since it is a challenging colour to have available in a trailing pansy.

The PAS coleus display had a cooking theme and was entitled “Cooking with Coleus.” In recent years, the Premium Sun line of coleus with its sun and shade tolerance has been the main breeding focus for PAS. Market analysis has shown that the top selling coleus colour is the red as exemplified by the vegetative cultivars Redhead and Beale Street. In response to that demand PAS, is releasing Sweet Paprika (15). While it is impossible to eliminate bloom in a seed propagated coleus, late bloom times can be selected for and Sweet Paprika is the latest to bloom in the Premium Sun series. 

Some of the new vegetable introductions in PAS’s Ground Breakers collection include Kickstart, a new green to red bell pepper with big, thick-walled fruit. Mature, red fruit can be achieved in 70-75 days from transplant. A new Patty Pan squash (16), Green Lightning, has uniquely coloured fruit with green striping. Harvestable fruit can be had 40-45 days after seeding. The new WonderStar Pink tomato is an heirloom style tomato with disease resistance and great flavour. Fruit is mature 60-65 days after transplant.

Day 2
GreenFuse

GreenFuse focuses on daylength neutrality whenever possible in its breeding. The Salvia farinaceae cultivars on display were one example where all colours are truly DL neutral. Daylength neutrality usually means that the bloom times are more easily programmable by the grower. 

An improvement in the range of pH tolerance is a feature of the newish Cielo series of calibrachoa.  For the consumer with relatively high pH irrigation water, this series should be more tolerant pH creep upwards throughout the growing season.

The new Firefly Petunia (17) was on display at the GreenFuse booth. I first saw it glow in the dark at Cultivate 2024; a similar dark room was set up in California this spring. Once your eyes became acclimated to pitch black, the petunias became visible as a ghostly glow. A lot has been written already about the fungal source of the luminescence, so I won’t address that here. What was interesting was hearing about how popular this white petunia was last year in the markets that it was available. Customers reportedly spent US$30 per plant. The big question amongst my fellow Canadians at CAST was when it will be available in our market? Apparently, the paperwork has been filed, and the expectation is that it will be available for the 2026 market. 

In the world of Bidens, GF has bred “decent” size improvements into the flower. The new Doubloon Giant Gold (18) is a great example of a low growing compact specimen with dramatically large bloom diameter. 

In the world of firsts, GF has bred a new double pentas (19) flower available in lavender and white-coloured cultivars. With its single flower types, GF has released very attractive red star and lavender star flower colour patterns.  

Streptocarpus has long been a standby and reliable houseplant. As another first, GF is introducing a new double-flowered (20) form of this flower.

As an interesting aside, when Tradescantia Pistachio White (21) was first released in 2023, there was a certain amount of skepticism about how this introduction would be received in the marketplace. Three years later, we have the answer to that question with Pistachio White being the #3 best seller of the GF product mix.

 

Westhoff

Westhoff breeding is taking a broader direction with the expansion of its current lines and the expansion of product offerings to include, for example, a new interspecific geranium introduction.  Westhoff is interested in providing the grower with solutions while maintaining a consumer focus. Crazytunias (22) are selected for their upright and mounding growth habit. They work well in 10cm to 1L sized pots and are ideal for impulse purchases at retail locations. There are four new colour additions to this novelty series.

Discoball (23) is a new series of petunias that is more compact and earlier to flower than the other Westhoff series. The breeding of this series has selected heavily for heat tolerance and against speckling disappearing in the summer heat. Legal concerns about the use of this speckled petunia have been amicably addressed so it is now available on the market.

A new orange petunia with the A1-DFR gene has been released. ‘The Orange’ (24), as it was called at CAST, it is a brilliant orange colour. It is a new addition to the Inferno series. In case you haven’t heard already, the Hell series has been replaced with the more consumer acceptable ‘Inferno’ series name. 

Pink Cloud (25) is the first colour in what is hoped to be a multi-colour series of vigorous petunias in the future. This petunia is perfect for use in the landscape as well as in large 60 cm containers. According to the presenter, this is the best petunia that Westhoff has ever bred.

With calibrachoa, there are two new colours in the Eyecatcher series. The Caliloco series is described as the Crazytunia version of calibrachoa. There are four new colours in this series. Like Crazytunia, this series is ideal for small-pot impulse sales.

This year Westhoff is releasing an improved version of the Sunmazing sunflower. The improvement is increased resistance to late season powdery mildew and is the result breeding in an increased leaf glossiness into the sunflower.

Schoneveld 

The world’s first Cyclamen persicum F1 hybrid blue cyclamen stood out as being exceptionally different at the Schoneveld display. On display were two cultivars with two shades of blue: Dragon Blue and Dragon Dark Blue (26). This is considered to be a mini cyclamen to be best grown in a 10 cm pot size. 

Beekenkamp

Beekenkamp is known for its Dahlias and the uniform habit within each series. The new dark leaved Labella Grande Chocolate (27) series had four colours which contrast well against the dark foliage.

This year, Beekenkamp showed off part of its expanded breeding efforts on the genus Verbena. The new series verbena series Fuerte hits the market with five straight colours and six bicolours.

Hem Genetics

Hem Genetics has a new dianthus series – Divinity (28). It’s genetically compact and available in 11 colours.

Quality Cuttings 

This is a family-owned company with an office in Ohio and a farm in Mexico. On display was a brand new coleus – the Plexifolia (29) series that has been picked up by the Garden Choice Collective.  What’s new about this series is that the stems are flexible, not brittle. They can be dropped without danger of breaking stems. 

Pacific Plug and Liner

PP&L has two new colours for its Frost Kiss Hellebore (30) series – Cherisa and Cosmio. This series is known for its heat tolerance and the unique and eye-catching marbled, bicoloured green leaf with frosty foliage. The breeding goals for this series is compactness and later bloom dates to match late winter/early spring consumer buying patterns. Depending on the colour, bloom dates can range from January to March. Cherisa is the latest to bloom (in late March) with an off white/magenta burst of bicolour. Cosmio features rich, deep-purple blooms. 

The new Echibeckia Summerina Firana (31) is the earliest of the series to bloom. It has huge, first flush flower diameters of 20 cm on the first flush. It has sturdy stems and exceptional vigour making it a showstopper in the garden. This selection is only hardy to Zone 7 so will need to be treated as an annual in most of Canada.

With the lifting of Canadian import restrictions around Light Brown Apple Moth, PP&L can now ship lavender to Canada. The new Plum Power (32) lavender is a compact cultivar with a near double flower. It has an excellent branching habit, is later to bloom than some other cultivars but has an interesting bloom colour that changes from lilac purple to a rich plum as it ages.

Brand New for CAST is the lavender Voltage Violet (33). It has striking silver coloured foliage and is botrytis resistant. It has demonstrated excellent growth performance under cool damp conditions. PP&L should have good availability of this product in the fall of 2025.

PP&L’s perennial primula program continues to expand with the introduction more colours for the Pretty Polly! (34) series of polyantha styled primula. The double flowers are held high above the foliage. This is a mega-sized primula and is idea for filling 20 cm sized pots. This series blooms approximately one month later than the shorter Pollyanna series. New colours include Burgundy and Jersey Cream. The colour palette of this series tends to be softer than is seen with Pollyanna colours.

 

Plant Haven

Plant Haven has added Delft Blue as a new colour to its Zone 5 hardy Magnifi Scent (35) perennial violas. 

Sedum Jaws (36) is available through Quality Cuttings; jagged serrated edged leaf with butter yellow/apple green leaf variegation. This will produce a pollinator friendly soft pink flower in the fall. Hardy to Zone 3.

Suntory

The Surfinia Heavenly (37) group of petunias from Suntory has a semi-trailing habit and displaysgreat garden performance.  A new colour introduction for this series this year is Cashmere Pink. This is a soft pink coloured outer bloom that fades to white near the bloom centre. 

Suntory’s Beedance (38) series of hybrid Bidens has received a complete upgrade to produce larger blooms, higher flower count, a compact growth habit and produce a honey fragranced designed to attract bees.  The series has three colours – painted orange, yellow and painted red.

Dümmen Orange

DO has a tradition of being innovative with mixes. It has been almost 20 years since DO came up with the Confetti Garden concept. 

This innovation with mixes continues with the announcement of a new mix series aimed at the late summer/fall season – Garden Party Fall Fantastic (39). Garden Party mixes differ from Confetti mixes in that the components are initially propagated separately before being blended in a mixed container; this allows plants with different propagation requirements to be used together in mixes. Each Garden Party Fall Fantastic mix is composed of four different cultivars to give a very full, lush and engaging display. GP Fall Fantastic is launched with five recipes including colours that are well suited to the fall shoulder season. To help growers with the timing of the culture of these mixes, DO has created an updated spreadsheet planning tool available on its website.

DO is also taking advantage of the first-year blooming properties of many of its perennials and including them in mixes alongside annuals (40). If it blooms like an annual, why not use it like an annual?

The calibrachoa Rainbow (41) series has been expanded with three new additions to make it a true grower series. It will include eight colours for the 2026 season. This series is unique in that multi-coloured blooms are produced on one plant. The colour of the bloom will change in response to temperature at bud set and light levels. The new Rainbow Dragon Berry is the most colour changing of the series. With this cultivar you will get the equivalent of a Confetti Garden mix arising from one plant.

Bloomtastic (42) is DO’s fastest growing calibrachoa series with big blooms, big body and great heat and humidity tolerance. The new Honey colour is a dark honey yellow colour that can develop an orangey blush under high light levels.

DO had an interesting display of pack style plantings with the tag line, “The Pack is Back” (43). Is this a blast from 1994 like our presenter suggested? With the pack format, DO is promoting ways for the budget conscious gardener to access its genetics. Certain vegetative lines such as Downtown Coleus can work well in 306 sized pack. This product is ready for retail 10 weeks after direct sticking.

Pollinator friendly gardening is an ongoing consumer trend where the gardener wants both beauty and functionality from their flowers. The new dahlia series, Summer Bees (44) is available in red and purple and is a bee friendly, single-flowered bloom with exceptional heat tolerance and a showy bloom poised high above the foliage. This series is produced best in a 2.5L pot. Summer Bees received a lot of buzz among attendees at CAST this year.

In response to the societal demand for geraniums trending downwards, Dümmen Orange focused its CAST2025 display on two of its many Pelargonium series with the reasoning that these two series can provide most of what the grower and consumer is looking for. The other series you may know, and love are still available but weren’t on display at CAST this year. Both the Big EEZE and Santana series are interspecific hybrids with the Big EEZE series having a more traditional zonal habit and the Santana series being a great choice for hanging baskets. The new Big EEZE Pink Panther (45) has a pink bloom with a white eye.

First-year flowering perennials were highlighted at DO’s CAST display as were extra hardy perennials. Dümmen Orange is winter hardy testing its perennials at a location north of Winnipeg. If they survive there for at least two winters, they are given a Zone 3 hardiness designation and are labelled as ‘True North Perennials.’ The current recipients of that designation are listed in the 2026 catalogue. 

La Diva (46) is the branding given to all of DO’s own lavender breeding. This year there are five new releases of Spanish and English lavenders. English lavenders are generally hardy to Zone 5, but the new Sprint series has a white colour that just survived two winters at the True North testing site. The purple blue and pink colours in the series have only survived one year and are considered hardy to Zone 4. This series requires vernalization to initiate flowering. 

Viola is the latest new genera being brought to the market as a perennial. These violas (47) are first-year flowering, available in seven colours and have great heat and humidity tolerance; this new perennial will bloom in both the spring and the fall.

The Sprint and Arabella (48) series of dianthus are new to the North American market but are popular in Europe. The cuttings are shipped from the from their Encinitas farm. Both series are compact and fragrant and first year flowering.  Arabella has a large flower size than Sprint. Both series are first-year flowering, fragrant and suit production in 1-2.5L pots. The natural flowering season is in the spring, but hardiness is limited to Zone 6.

Campanula is a new genus category for DO’s perennials. UltraViolet is a selection of Campanula portenschlagiana; it has a low growing spreading habit that is perfect as a ground cover and for production in 2.5 L pots. Hardy to Zone 4. It is first-year flowering and, in the landscape, will bloom in the late spring.

Serene (49) is a collection of first-year flowering Nepeta from DO that exhibits a compact growing habit. It is available in blue and white colours. Nepeta Tranquil is a larger plant than Serene and is currently available in a purple colour. Both plants should be grown in 1L or larger containers and are hardy to at least Zone 4.

The new Cloudburst (50) series of Sedum telephium has been selected for mildew tolerance, overall compact habit and sturdiness. There are two colours currently available – Burgundy and Green Flash. Hardy to Zone 4.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of our CAST 2025 coverage!

In the meantime, check out some of the genetics from the 2024 California Spring Trials here.

Rodger Tschanz is a greenhouse technician and sessional lecturer at the University of Guelph and can be reached at rtschanz@uoguelph.ca.