On March 1, Andy Matsui celebrated his 80th birthday, and his daughter, Teresa Matsui, became Matsui Nursery’s president, according to a news release. Andy Matsui, the company founder, is now chairman of Matsui Nursery and said he’s looking forward to working just five days a week instead of his usual seven.

“What I want is for him to have fun,” said Teresa Matsui in the release. “To work with the growers, to plan our new greenhouses, to not have to hassle with problems.”

A breakthrough in floriculture, Ketchup and Fries by TomTato is a hand-grafted plant that produces both sweet tomatoes and delicious potatoes. According to a company news release, this product from Britain has made its way to the North American market through SuperNaturals Grafted Vegetables, the founders of the “Mighty ‘Mato” grafted tomato brand.

Above the ground, gardeners can harvest over 500 super sweet cherry tomatoes for snacking, salads and even ketchup. Below the ground, the yield is up to 4.5 pounds of white potatoes for baking, mashing and of course, fries.

Spring is on its way — that is the sentiment from shoppers whenever they first see garden seed displays in stores. Garden seeds are a great selling category for today’s floral departments because they produce high margins, fast turns and no initial product investment. Plus, your customers appreciate the one-stop shopping of being able to make their flower and vegetable seed selections while visiting your floral department.

The International Floriculture Expo has announced in a news release that Susan Packard, co-founder of HGTV, will be the keynote speaker for the International Floriculture Expo that will take place June 8-10 at McCormick Place in Chicago. The 2015 show will be co-located with United Fresh and the Food Marketing Institute’s FMI Connect and is expected to draw 14,000 attendees.

As the former owner of NYC Farm Chic Flowers, every time I crafted hand-held bouquets for delivery, there was a constant “there has to be a better way,” voice in my mind — that is, a better way to hydrate flower stems of hand-held bouquets other than messy paper towels or chemically based foam wraps.

The major design goals for the desired product included:

• Support the life of cut flowers.

• 100 percent plant-based composition.

The Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers held a Growers’ Intensive Conference at the Georgia Center on the campus of the University of Georgia March 2-3 and it drew 124 attendees from 29 different states. The conference was open to anyone interested in commercial cut flower production or floral design and the two-day event focused on the production and marketing of field and greenhouse cut flowers.