They softly light up the environment and have the appearance of colorful, glowing orbs. Lite-a-Loon LED balloons, 11-inch latex balloons with a battery-powered LED light inside, were recently introduced to the U.S. market by burton + BURTON in Bogart, GA.

“The initial launch of the Lite-a-Loon has been great,” Steve Rose, media and communications manager for burton + BURTON, told The Produce News. “Everyone who sees them instantly starts thinking of ways to use them. We’ve heard of people using them in school dances, parties, concerts and other low-light venues.”

Floral farmers usually concentrate solely on growing flowers, but Kendall Farms in Fallbrook, CA, is an exception to that norm. The Southern California wholesaler, well-nown for its sunflowers, has 500 acres of land for flower growing, but Kendall Farms also dedicates a few acres each year to growing produce that is used to help those in the community.

Troy Conner, general manager of Kendall Farms, told The Produce News that the idea to grow produce came to him in 2009.

You can now surprise your party guests, event attendees or even trick-or-treaters with glow-in-the-dark fresh flowers. After years of research, a Dutch flower company, Vip Roses, has created the first cut flowers that give off light in the darkness and their vase life has not been adversely affected, according to a news release.

For the past 50 years, a fresh Christmas tree has been displayed on the west front lawn of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, during the holiday season. The U.S. Forest Service, in partnership with Choose Outdoors and the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, will bring a whopping 80-foot-plus white spruce from the Chippewa National Forest in Minnesota to Washington, DC, for the 2014 season, it was announced in a news release.

Trees for Troops hopes to deliver 18,000 free, fresh Christmas trees this year with a majority of those going to military families stationed at military installations across the United States. The deliveries will take place at 60-plus bases and units around the world, covering every branch of the armed services, according to a news release.

Based in Twello, the Netherlands, Schoneveld Breeding, a specialist in flowering pot plants with 35 percent of the world market for Cyclamen, won the International Grower of the Year award during a gala dinner at the 66th annual conference of the Association of Horticultural Producers in Qingdao, China, Sept. 17. AIPH president, Vic Krahn and the China Flower Association secretary general, Liu Hong, presented the Golden Rose Trophy to Schoneveld Breeding.