Plantasia; App roundup; A Garden Life; Boxwood blight; California Spring Trials; Girl Scout visit the White House

• Buffalo’s Plantasia show was really great. It’s a lot of fun to see the display gardens evolve from year to year. I was honored to be a judge again, and we were treated like royalty. Thank you to the WNYSNLA. For a complete list of winners and lots of pictures, check out Plantasia’s facebook page.
• The (major) winners were:
• Overall Best of Show Menne Nursery Garden Artistry
• Best Garden (Large) Landscape-Tec
• Best Garden (Small) A Growing Business, Inc.
• Applications are available for the 2012 Green America Awards (via Greenhouse Product News). “The Green America Awards were created to give national recognition and thousands of dollars in plants to community groups and organizations that are improving their local environments. The annual awards honor nonprofit groups and organizations that are literally ‘greening’ their communities, parks, schools and public spaces by planting trees, shrubs and other plants. The plant materials selected by the winners can contain any combination of shade trees, fruit trees, bushes and shrubs, perennials and vegetable seeds available from www.naturehills.com.”
• From the New York Times, a review of apps for gardeners and landscapers. I’d love to hear any opinions on these or any other apps you actually use in the field. (This morning  used the Dirr Guide while writing a column, but still don’t feel dirty, muddy hands go that well with expensive electronics.)
• Spring Trials, formerly known as “Pack Trials,” are underway in California, and boy do I wish I were there! Next best thing? The daily Acres of Buzz e-newsletter put together by Ball Publishing’s Ellen Wells and Chris Beytes. If you are comfortable using twitter, another good way is to follow the #springtrials hashtag. You don’t even need an account; you can just sort of eavesdrop.
• GIE Media has launched a digital consumer garden mag, available on tablets and on the web, called A Gardening Life. What’s interesting about it is that, GIE Media being a B2B company, they looked to involve garden centers from the outset. So there’s national advertising, but there is also a geo-coding component wherein, when a customer interacts with an ad, she is “pointed” to a nearby affiliated garden center. Are you hooked up with A Gardening Life? Interesting possibilities; maybe some future ideas here for the Upstate Gardeners’ Journal (and you).
• Speaking of GIE, one of its titles. Garden Center, recently published this article about collaborative green industry marketing efforts on the local, regional and national scale: Got Plants? There was also this piece about how to use visual cues to enhance eco-friendly marketing initiatives. One main point: “You may be tired of hearing it—but your customers aren’t. Eco-friendly and ‘green’ marketing messages still resonate with the public.”
• After reading this article about the rise of boxwood blight and this brief identifying pachysandra as a host, then getting an email from a local landscaper worried she had found some in a client’s garden, I emailed CCE’s Walt Nelson looking for a local report. His reply: “…existing plantings are likely OK.  Most infections will occur when new plants (infected ones) are installed.  One site we ran through the lab was negative for the blight (it had other diseases) and the suggestion was to propagate [one’s] own plants rather than buy in.
• Junior Girl Scouts from Fairport got to visit and help out in the White House garden on Monday. Story via D&C.
• The Hudson Valley Seed Library is calling for pack art by artists from the North East. Deadline March 29.

Tagged as: a garden life, a gorwing business, acres of buzz, apps, ball publishing, boxwood blight, Buffalo, chris beytes, D&C, dirr, dirr guide, Ellen Wells, garden center magazine, GIE media, green america awards, iphone, landscape-tec, menne, nature hills, New York Times, nursery management, Plantasia, spring trials