Trial: Annual

Years Trialed: 2000

Good Qualities

Color (4); Unusual flower head (2); Has side branches that flower; Easy; Nice flower head, maybe too big to grow on large scale; Big and gaudy, late season cut and need to pick at young stage; Even through strong stemmed, people prefer Temple Belles Dark Rose since more uniform and got more cut flowers; The larger florists loved the big long stems and some loved the color; Stem length, dries well; Exotic looking, pest free.

Problems

Stems too thick (3); High proportion of foliage to flower, one plant with bad fasciation; Many plants didn’t regrow after 1st cut; Difficul to use in bouquets; I don’t like the color (too flat); Despite different spacing, they fell over when other celosias in the bed were still upright - weak root system; No problems; For the smaller florists it was too big but everyone can’t be happy; Has side shoots at flower base; Flower head sheds.

Comments

Temple Belles Dark Rose has similar color, but in a much more useful form; Similar to Red Velvet but actually flower forms are more saleable and larger crest on Red Velvet; Similar to Bombay; I was surprised at the customer’s acceptance of the form of this celosia; I thought that people would not like it but they did; May have better flower size if plants were pinched back softly (12;) to force many side shoots; More of a novelty rather than a professional cut; It was nice to have a large different variety to go along with Chief mix; 12; wide flowers; Didn’t know prime time to cut flowerhead, various stages to cut flower heads, vase life - 7 days.

Trial Data

¹1 to 5 scale, with 5 being the best. Market ratings are based on sales to wholesalers, retailers, or final consumers direct.

Supplier

Fred C. Gloeckner 600 Mamaroneck Ave. 60178 Harrison, NY 10528-1613