Business

New team: Plants for Europe and Altman Plants

The independent plant breeder’s agent, Plants for Europe has announced that they are now working with California-based Altman Plants, to bring new plant varieties to Europe and the UK.

Agapanthus Atomic Bloom

Representing plant varieties from breeders around the world, Plants for Europe (PFE) offers breeders guidance through the development process, arrange commercial trials, organise intellectual property protection, manage marketing and product launches of new plants.

Altman Plants has been breeding and growing plants for almost 50 years, expanding from a Los Angeles garden to the largest grower in the US. The family-owned business works across the industry, from managing breeding programmes to trials, e-commerce to branded products across a huge variety of genera.

Altman Plants and PFE will be working together to protect, promote and license the output from three distinct breeding programmes:

  1. Winter-hardy, bright and bold Agapanthus Atomic Bloom (pictured), the first of an exciting Agapanthus development programme.
  2. Altman is renowned for their succulent breeding and production – in particular the Star™ Aloe varieties developed by Kelly Griffin, which offer a range of vibrant colours and will be made available to European and UK growers for the first time.
  3. Altman’s True Bloom® Roses are the result of the revolutionary breeding process led by Ping Lim. The roses combine the best features of hybrid tea flowering roses with shrub roses, resulting in disease-resistant, easy-to-grow varieties with a long season of colour and scent. The flowers are high petal count true rose blooms, from which comes the name. These varieties must pass through an extensive no-spray trial process, both at Altman trial gardens and at respected independent evaluation locations, before they are brought to market, ensuring that the varieties thrive under a wide variety of growing and climatic conditions. True Bloom® Rose varieties have already won several awards after trials.

Regarding the working together with PFE, the owners of Altman Plants, Ken and Matt Altman said: “We are a company that has an intense passion for plants and innovation. For many years, we have bred and developed new programmes for our retail partners that we also grow and produce in our greenhouses across the United States. For this reason, as a greenhouse grower ourselves, we have insight into what the grower demands in performance from new varieties, along with what succeeds for retailers and consumers. We are very excited to be partnering with the Plants for Europe team to bring our new plant developments to Europe and the UK!”.

Graham Spencer, director, Plants For Europe Limited said: “We are truly delighted to be working with the Altman team! They have a reputation for excellence, both as growers and as breeders, so it is an honour to be able to bring their varieties to our clients, including some of the best growers in the UK and in Europe. We are very excited by the potential of this partnership”.