Highlights from Ball Seed Customer Days 2026

Here at Ball Seed, we strive to make sure you feel supported for every year and growing season. We hosted this year’s Customer Days on July 30 and 31, 2026, with an amazing turnout of nearly 1,000 visitors. The weather was beautiful, and the energy was electric. We hope your Customer Days experience was filled with inspiration, education and excitement for 2027.

In case any of our customers and greenhouse growers missed it, here are a few highlights from Ball Seed Customer Days 2026 showcasing the latest new varieties, grower solutions and horticultural trends. We hope you’ll join us next year to experience it all in person at The Gardens at Ball!

• Scaevola Blazen™, Ball FloraPlant (Blue, White and Compact Blue) – A late bloomer and powerhouse in the heat, this great summer performer fills pots nicely with excellent branching and flower coverage featuring fan-like blooms.
• Mandevilla Divina Series, Selecta One – The Compact series performs beautifully in baskets with lots of smaller blooms. The Megaflora series features large blooms that can be trained on a trellis, along with neat, tidy growth and beautiful waxy foliage.
• Sunflower Suncredible® Yellow Improved, Proven Winners – Adds significant height to the garden while offering continuous blooms and low-maintenance performance.
• Rudbeckia Suntacular, Darwin Perennials – This bicolor perennial features a tall, columnar habit and is fantastic as a cut flower.
• Sunflower Always Sunny, PanAmerican Seed – An award-winning variety that performs well with or without pinching. Pollen-free yet highly attractive to pollinators, it is also an excellent cut flower with strong, sturdy stems.
• Petunia Supertunia Vista® Cool Jazz®, Proven Winners – A vigorous landscape performer with a soft pink hue that pairs beautifully with other pastel colors in the garden.
• Veronica Skyward™ Series, Darwin Perennials – Maintains exceptional color even into late July, offers powdery mildew resistance and attracts plenty of bees.
• Rudbeckia Claire™ Orange, American Takii – This pollen-free variety fills landscapes and garden beds with vibrant color while demonstrating remarkable heat tolerance.
• Petchoa EnViva™ Series, Selecta One (Pink and Blue Vein) – Works well in combination plantings with large colorful flowers and excellent rain tolerance.
• Petchoa CitraNova™ Series, Ball FloraPlant – Provides early color, extends garden performance later into the season, roots exceptionally well and blends nicely in mixes.
• Spreading Petunia E3 Easy Wave® Midnight Marble, PanAmerican Seed – Features a mid-blue and white bicolor pattern with slightly smaller flowers than other E3 Easy Wave varieties, but an abundance of blooms. An excellent choice for early-season sales.
• Petunia Trilogy™ Series, American Takii – Features a unique dome-shaped habit and produces abundant flowers on compact, spreading plants.

Plastic Pot Alternatives Trials

This year at The Gardens at Ball, a unique trial bed was dedicated to Sustainable Pot Trialing as part of the company’s sustainability initiative. Interspecific Impatiens Solarscape® Salmon Punch was selected for planting using four different plastic pot alternatives. As a low-maintenance variety, it was interesting to observe how Solarscape thrived in full sun throughout the trials despite varying conditions.

While there was little difference in plant performance among the test groups, the pots continued to break down into the soil and the plants maintained high-impact color throughout the season. Overall, the trials demonstrated that sustainable pots are an effective option for eliminating single-use plastic pots in greenhouse production.

The sustainable pot options included:

• Eco+ Grande from Proven Winners, a compostable pot that was not directly planted in the ground.
• Air Tray®, a reusable tray system that holds Ellepot pots and effectively eliminates traditional pots altogether.
• Plant a Pot from Footprint, a plantable biodegradable pot.
• ReTerra by Growscape, a bioplastic pot alternative.

Check out our video: Watch on Facebook

Pathology Lab Partners

Ball Seed customers also have access to the expertise of our Technical Experts in the Pathology Lab. For example, if you encounter a pest issue in the greenhouse, you can send your questions to the diagnostic lab, where experts can help identify problems, provide recommendations and offer solutions.

This is a free service available exclusively to Ball Seed customers and just one more way we help growers achieve the most successful crops possible.

The Gardens at Ball 3D Maps

Be sure to join fellow greenhouse growers next July to explore our 13 acres and 145,000 plants on display in West Chicago, Illinois. We look forward to welcoming you back next year at The Gardens at Ball!

In the meantime, we invite you to take a tour of the beautiful areas of our gardens with our 3D Maps.