Gomphrena Strawberry Fair
Gomphrena – there are a lot of them available in the market and it is a flower I just love. They can be used fresh or dried and are very productive.
One that really caught my eye is Strawberry Fair. We included it in our Dried Flower Collection for 2024 from breeder/producer Takii Europe/Sahin and grew it here at The Gardens at Ball this past summer. My conclusions about Strawberry Fair were right in step with the review it received for the summer trials 2023 by the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers as one of the top cuts in trial.
As noted in some of my other cut flower blogs, one of my principal goals is to discover flowers that will work well for open field production. Strawberry Fair checks all the boxes I would be looking for:
Great color – check!
Heat tolerance – check!
Productivity – check!
Ease of harvest – check!
Good stem length and strength – check!
Weather/storm tolerance – check!
Same with most of the cut flowers grown at Ball this summer, we did not put supports in our beds to see what would work if one did not have this option. Strawberry Fair stood up to our strong thunderstorms and bounced back very well. I would prefer to see support implemented to allow for straighter, taller stems, (being a bit of a perfectionist) but they did quite well without.
I found them to be easy to harvest and strip the leaves before placing in water (adding to their value and profitability to produce).
We installed them in the garden week 21 from a 216-plug tray into a prepared bed using the 360 Bio weed barrier with drip tape underneath. We hand-watered the beds for the first two weeks to assist the plugs as they established. The weather was unusually hot and dry; we lost none of the plugs planted – phenomenally successful!
How can this be your success, too? Order seeds or plugs with Ball Seed or your Ball Colorlink Representative now to get started.