There are some really interesting ideas coming out of Hort Couture -- new genetics as well as new ways to think about marketing your products. I hope it's extremely successful, because I would love to see something like this in a garden center near me. They're calling this the Fashion Plate.

According to the release, it's a self-locking tray that holds one 6.5"-inch pot in the center, surrounded by slots for seven 4.5-inch pots. Hort Couture will offer 12 recipes to mix and match in the trays, and each recipe is named after a "City of Fashion." The Fashion Plate will be available in April 2008.

This whole concept is going to be so appealing to the demographic floriculture should be targeting. Women like gardening for the beauty of the finished product, the cut flowers on the dinner table. Guys like demolition, getting themselves dirty and digging things up. If you want to get the women, keep it classy.