Chicagoland Grows® Plant Introduction.  
The program markets itself and its plants to the horticulture industry with the goal of introducing new plants to the trade and to gardeners while providing income to the Chicago Botanic Garden. Three new plants were introduced this year: Phlox ‘Forever Pink’ (developed at the Garden), and Crescendo™ sugar maple and Beijing Gold™ tree lilac, both from the Morton Arboretum. The program was promoted through trade booth exhibitions at three trade shows, web page updates, and numerous printed and electronic media promotions. Nearly 3,000 stock plants and cuttings were shipped to more than 30 nurseries. Two plant introduction companies were licensed in Europe to trial and then patent and promote the program’s perennial introductions (CNB in the Netherlands) and its woody plant introductions (SAPHO in France). Stock plants representing more than 20 of our introductions were shipped to these two companies. One of the world’s top unrooted cutting producers, Florexpo in Costa Rica, was licensed to begin selling in 2014 two of the program’s perennial plants, Phlox ‘Forever Pink’ (shown on right) and Veronica ‘Tidal Pool’. To protect the legal properties of the program, three plant patents were received and five plant patent applications were filed. Royalty income for the year was $153,000, an increase over the previous year’s income of 12.5 percent (Ault).

Address:     1000 Lake Cook Rd. Glencoe, IL 60022 Email:    jault@chicagobotanic.org Contact:   Jim Ault Phone:    (847) 835-5440   FAX: