Garden rose ‘Our First Summer’ from Danish Roses Forever ApS scoops up Show Your Colours Award at 2024 IPM Essen show

Rosa Eskelund of Roses Forever ApS (wearing canary yellow) accepted the Show Your Colours Award from Eva Kähler-Theuerkauf (left).

Rosa Eskelund, who in 1996 set up rose breeding company Roses Forever ApS together with husband Harley, scooped at the Show Your Colours Award for her ‘Our First Summer’ garden rose, trained around a wooden trellis and boasting fantastic scent and blooms. The prize winning variety is a proud member of Eskelund’s hassle-free line of Plant’n’ Relax garden roses.

IPM Essen co-organiser and president of the German industry body Landesverband Gartenbau, Eva Kähler-Theuerkauf was on hand in the BIZZ Holland stand on Thursday 25 January  to present Eskelund with the award.

Messe Essen and BIZZ Communications encourage woody plant and perennial growers from across Europe to participate with new plants or concepts. The Show Your Colours Award celebrate excellence in plant marketing.

Created in 2015 to foster and advance the importance of emotional branding in the marketing plans of perennial and nursery stock producers, the Show Your Colour Award has helped participating growers in finding inspiration and new ideas for branding their plants.

As in previous years, shortlisted nurseries contesting for the renowned awards were given the opportunity to display their novelty plants in Hall 8 at the IPM ESSEN.

Here, visitors casted their votes by means of tokens. On Thursday afternoon, the plants and their compelling stories were judged by a professional panel of judges consisting of Sytse Berends of Blunt Communicatieadvies, Helma van der Louw, Hester van Lint, and Eva Kähler-Theuerkauf of IPM Essen.

Securing second an third place were Cherry Tomato Brown Solanum Lycopersicum, submitted by Vreugdenhil Young Plants from the Netherlands and dark-leaved Hydrangea First Editions ‘Eclipse’ submitted by Bailey Nurseries (US).