Flower Council of Holland - Cut flower market success: Ageratum Esparanza

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Date: 06/01/2006

Until now Ageratum has always been grown from seed but this has all changed with the arrival of the Esparanza cultivar. The result is a far more uniform product.

One thing that has not changed is the enchantingly delicate flower with – in the case of Esparanza – its wonderful shade of blue. The flowers, which are around ½ inch in diameter, grow in closely packed clusters. Both the leaves and stems have fine hairs, giving the flower its ‘soft’, herb-like appearance. Esparanza may look soft but it has an excellent vase life of around 12 days.

Esparanza is propagated by means of cuttings and because of this the flower has a much more uniform growth habit and flowers earlier than seed raised varieties. This means that growers can harvest and sort earlier and this can be seen in the end product – all the bunches look similar. The average stem length is 27 ½ inches. This Ageratum is also available in two other colors: white (Eskimo) and pink (Esmee).

Ageratum Esparanza (Dutch auction code 25044) was introduced at the Dutch flower auctions in March 2005. More than half a million stems were sold in the first year and the price at auction was 6 Euro cents higher on average than the price of the standard variety ‘Blue Horizon’. It was quite a successful launch indeed. Esparanza is available from March to the end of November but not in the months of July and August.

Cut flower market success: Successful market acceptance of new cut flower.

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