Petal Pushers View the Latest Blossoms

Surrounded by 30,000 petunias, zinnias, begonias, salvia and other flowers in full bloom, Kim Myslinski cast a critical eye on the bright golden flowers of a rudbeckia.

Myslinski was looking over the Michigan State University Horticultural Demonstration Gardens in East Lansing, Mich., to see which annuals she might want to offer in the spring to customers at Marsh Greenhouse in Rockwood.

“I like to see what they’ve put together and the colors,” she said, gesturing at a bed planted with purple heliotrope and delicate pink nicotiana.

The yearly Grower’s Day at the garden gives the state’s 555 flower and bedding plant growers a chance to find out if the flowers they see in catalogs live up to their billing, and what the plants look like in full bloom. About 100 growers attended this year’s event.

The seed catalogs “always paint you such a rosy picture,” said Bob Auxter of Meiring Greenhouse & Farms, a large wholesaler in Carleton that ships 150,000 flats of flowers each year to major retailers such as Target and Kmart. “It’s nice to see the stuff in its natural setting.”

Although the recent heat blast left the impatiens limp, most of the plants in the test gardens came through unscathed, said Norm Lownds, an assistant professor of horticulture who coordinates the trial gardens for annual plants.

The trial gardens are an important tool for regional growers, who want to see how plants hold up to the area’s growing conditions.

Flower growing is big business in Michigan, accounting for $143 million in sales of bedding and garden plants in 1996 and $26 million in sales of flowering potted plants. The state is ranked either first or second in the value of geraniums, impatiens and petunias sold.

“When you drive around [Michigan], everyone has flowers,” Lownds said. “Our growers can start growing early and ship it [their product] south, then grow almost another whole crop and ship it north. It’s almost like having two seasons in one season.”

Myslinski said she likes the Michigan State gardens because the flowers get the same attention most home gardeners give their flowers. Four students take care of the annual test gardens, planting, fertilizing and watering by hand 800 to 850 varieties of flowers.

Bob and Sandy Oak of Sandy Oak Farm in Milford said they like the opportunity to consider new flowers that they can offer their customers.