Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
success in an area can be used as a guide, but may not always provide the answer. The
market niche needs to be carefully defined to determine where a particular plant can
be successfully marketed. It requires determining the distinguishing feature of a plant,
the end user requirements and where the plant will have the biggest impact on the
market. For an established ornamental plant such as hydrangea or poinsettia, which
has already a large established market, plant breeding is used to produce the new
features such as inflorescence shape or petal colour shades while maintaining all the
desirable features such as pot plant compactness, bract shape, and profuse flowering.
The end use of the plant, and in particular its functionality, is critical to its mar-
ketability. It may be best used as a bedding plant, pot plant, border or hedge row, or
as a mass planting or as a feature plant or background greenery. In deciding on this
use, account needs to be taken of the plants cultural and management requirements.
Some plants are easy to manage while others may require more detailed manage-
ment which may limit their use. For example some robust plants are best suited to
hedge-rows or green-cover or use as focal point plants. These are generally hardy
deciduous plants that once produced, will survive in the outdoors. For example
the deciduous Japanese barberry or Thunberg's barberry (
Berberis thunbergia
) is
a hedge-row plant tolerant of pollutants with over 30 cultivars available; including
a reddish-purple leaves “Harlequin” and yellow “Aurea” forms (2012b, c, d) which
have been successfully introduced into Europe as hedge row plants, green-cover or
focal point plants. Originating in Japan and being deciduous, the Japanese barberry
are much easier to manage than many other evergreen plants which can't survive
outside the severe frost conditions of winter in temperate northern Europe. This
illustrates that the horticulturist needs to be aware of the climatic conditions from
where the plants come from and the need to modify that climate before they are
introduced. Another example are the Australian native plants from the dry Medi-
terranean climatic region of Western Australia such as the Geraldton waxflower
(
Chamelaucium
spp.) and banksia species such as
Banksia menziesii
and
B. pri-
onotes
. Geraldton wax are hardy plants that have low water requirement, provide
a long flowering period of 50 to 60 days and provide vibrant colours in late winter
to late spring. In addition this plant has a level of frost and drought tolerance and
is able to survive during hot dry summers (20 to 30°C) with minimal maintenance.
Hence this species are suitable for dry climates of moderate temperatures but will
not tolerate severe frost having evolved under a dry Mediterranean climate of cool
wet winters and hot/dry summers. The Geraldton waxflowers are sold as cut flow-
ers and exported to Europe, USA, Canada and Japan, and are becoming popular
as amenity or garden plants in California, thriving as garden plants in San Diego
(Fitzsimmons
2001
; Wigand
2007
; Walker
2010
) such as the cultivar 'Matilda'
(San Marcos Growers
2011
; Ball
2013
) and as border amenity plants in golf courses
in California surviving through the dry summers.
In Australia, overseas and elsewhere, successful nursery businesses,
Plant in-
troduction schemes
have been employed, which have been developed to maintain
interest and continuity of product. This enables expansion of the market by continu-
ous introducing new variants of a particular type of plant based around a specific
theme i.e. hardy plants from Australia, or in the US where of the highly successful
