GROWER TALK Surfinia® impacted the lives of so many and not only consumers fell in love with the bright and bubbly flowers. Many industry colleagues have worked with Surfinia® and dedicated their time to multiply, grow or style Surfinia®. We have asked some of them to tell us about their experience with this iconic plant.
Michael Perry Mr. Plant Geek @mr_plantgeek @mr_plantgeek @mrplantgeek
Peter Seabrook British gardening writer and television broadcaster Gardening editor, The Sun
The arrival of cuttings raised Surfinia’s 30 years ago was greeted with some scepticism by traditional growers, but the public loved their vigorous, pendula habit and massed free flowering performance. It took a little time for people to realise stronger growing plants needed more space to grow (so needed less plants in any given size of container), more watering and feeding. Given this more generous style of cultivation, performance proved and continues to give outstanding garden decoration, flowering non stop right through the summer and autumn. While arriving in the single purple shade, there is now the full range of colours and I look forward to celebrating the Surfinia® 30th Anniversary with a display of them at the Royal Horticultural Society Chelsea Flower Show in May 2020. After the show plants will be grown on in the Floral Fantasia area at the RHS Hyde Hall Garden for hundreds of thousands of visitors to see and enjoy.
“For me, Surfinia® defines a whole generation of patio and basket plants. It really set the blueprint for how a ‘branded plant’ could be launched, and it deserves every success! The prospects for such a plant are steered by a combination of factors- marketing and a recognisable name, good point of sale (whether in a retail store or on a paper catalogue page), timing, and most importantly, excellent performance in a consumers garden. Surfinia® ticks all the boxes with a big fat inky pen! Surfinia® made such a strong brand for itself that it became hard to convince consumers about any other trailing petunia, however beautiful they may have been. It’s the same as someone turning their nose up at an inferior Cola brand when there’s a gleaming can of red Coca-Cola® sitting there in the vending machine! Branding gives confidence at every stage of a consumer’s journey. Quite often, a plant grown in trials doesn’t translate to easy home growing, however Surfinia® really does! I have grown Surfinia® in trials many times, and they are the most vigorous of any petunia, and require the least encouragement to trail, and the least enhancement to keep looking good. There’s little wonder this beast of a plant is still NUMBER ONE!”
