US: Business blooms for California nurseries

Starting in 2020, physical distancing, quarantine, and social isolation have kept many at home. For some searching for ways to occupy their time, indoor gardening has helped…

CAN: Van Belle Nursery expands greenhouse space to meet rising demand

Spring sales are strong, orders are coming in early and brands are increasing in popularity. In a nutshell, these are the biggest differences this season compared to 2020, Kevin Cramer of Van Belle Nursery, a Canadian wholesale plant nursery that is shipping across North America, explains. To meet the…

UK: Garden centres see big boost in furniture and BBQ sales in February

The garden centre association’s (GCA) recent barometer of trade (BoT) report for February has revealed furniture and barbecue sales at garden centers saw a 79.17% year to date increase during the month (2021). Although Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish centers were closed in February, as essential…

Germany: ZVG pleased with Merkel's decision to backtrack Easter lockdown

The Central Horticultural Association (Zentralverbandes Gartenbau e. V., ZVG) is pleased with the decision of Chancellor Angela Merkel to backtrack the Easter lockdown. On…

"World’s most sold machine to make spiral bouquets"

Imagine that it requires only 5 minutes to train a non-skilled worker to create uniform and complex hand-tied bouquets. With the patented hand-tied bouquets making machine of Mecaflor, it is possible. On top of the ease, the machine increases productivity by 30% to 50% and requires few technical…

Heating greenhouses with renewable energy

The use of biomass for heating agricultural greenhouses has shown to be one of the best solutions for efficient and controlled heating of crops. These bring environment as well as financial advantages. The use of biomass as an alternative energy in the greenhouse, for example, allows you to save on…

US (CO): First potted plants transported with SmartFlo at Altman Plants

At Altman Plants, a WPS SmartFlo conveyor belt system has been installed. The SmartFlo system is installed in the main aisle in their greenhouse in Peyton CO. Richard Dekker, maintenance manager at Altman Plants, scanned the market and ended up at WPS SmartFlo. Altman awarded the system to WPS, because…

Making hand bouquets twice as fast?

The Havatec Twister is said to be the first machine in the world that makes hand turned flower bouquets. But how does it work and what are the benefits? It is all explained and even showed in the article and video below. "The Twister makes bouquets with 10 to 35 stems and is available in different versions.…

Washing dirty crates in a looping

In Maasdijk, Growers United has finally taken up residence in their new location at Honderdland. This means a lot of product is going in and out at the big player in cultivating and packaging greenhouse vegetables. To keep all the crates used for this clean, Unifortes recently supplied  two washing installations.…

Millions of plants uniformly cut and trimmed

Recently, Plant nursery Baas from the Dutch town Ens started using a new Venti V004 pruning machine from Pack TTI. “Pinching” (trimming) is still common practice, especially in cuttings production, but doing it correctly, which means treating large quantities uniformly, is not that simple. “Almost the entire…

Automation enables cut flower industry to go hands free

In the cut flower industry the need to automate labor-intensive tasks is increasing. To meet this need, the companies Jamafa and DERO decided to join forces and therefore combining specialized knowledge of cut flower processing with the know how and of industrial robots. Their joint mission? Making the…

Photo by Kevin Rivoli, The Citizen

US: "Is the retail florist still relevant?"

Journalist Carmen Cosentino with The Citizen writes about the need for retail florists. "Yes, I do know that it is the middle of winter, and that we are about five months from being able to cut flowers in the garden. How I look forward to that! Yes, I do have flowers every day. But I do not have freshly…

Russian wholesalers worried about Women's Day shipments

International Women's Day is widely celebrated with flowers in Russia on March 8. However, this year the transport is delayed and there is even a shortage of flowers. The flowers that usually enter Russia via Belarus are halted at customs and are being let through or not for unknown reasons. Russian…

The new Mayer TM 1610F: "improved, versatile and compact"

Are you looking for a compact potting machine for your ornamental plant business? The revised Mayer TM 1610F combines the well-known strengths of the previous TM 1610 with even more comfort and user-friendliness. The Mayer TM 1610 has been one of the most frequently used and best-known potting machines…

UK: HTA reacts to post-Brexit trade rules in Northern Ireland

In reaction to last night’s meeting between Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove and the vice-president of the European Commission, Maros Sefcovic about post-Brexit trade…

When winter is coming: prepare the deck cleaner

With more than 30 years of experience and almost 1000 installations worldwide, they know how and what to do at Besseling Techniek. The machines are used year-round, to clean for more light output or to coat for additional protection. Machines always need their maintenance, but with a cold winter on the…