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Breeder's talk : "With Sapho, Elaeagnus MARYLINE® even shines in Japan!"

Posted in: Testimonies

2025-06-11

Testimony of Albert Brenelière, Pépinières Brenelière

Inspiration paysagère : Déjeuner sur l'herbe

Posted in: Plant palette

2025-05-29

A palette of innovative solutions

Posted in: Plant palette

2025-05-22

The spaces to be planted are increasingly varied in terms of size, agro-climatic conditions and uses. Climate change...

Landscaper's talk: "The plant palette is vast, beautiful, varied and constantly enriched"

Posted in: Testimonies

2025-05-09

Testimony of Catherine Boudet, landscape gardener and founder of the 5e Saison.

Sapho and INRAE: a partnership to improve plant health

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2025-05-12

Initiated in 1974, the partnership between INRA, now INRAE, and Sapho has been going strong for 50 years. It enables...

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Breeder's talk : "With Sapho, Elaeagnus MARYLINE® even shines in Japan!"

Posted in: Testimonies

2025-06-11

Testimony of Albert Brenelière, Pépinières Brenelière

Inspiration paysagère : Déjeuner sur l'herbe

Posted in: Plant palette

2025-05-29

A palette of innovative solutions

Posted in: Plant palette

2025-05-22

The spaces to be planted are increasingly varied in terms of size, agro-climatic conditions and uses. Climate change...

Sapho and INRAE: a partnership to improve plant health

Posted in: Our news

2025-05-12

Initiated in 1974, the partnership between INRA, now INRAE, and Sapho has been going strong for 50 years. It enables...

Landscaper's talk: "The plant palette is vast, beautiful, varied and constantly enriched"

Posted in: Testimonies

2025-05-09

Testimony of Catherine Boudet, landscape gardener and founder of the 5e Saison.

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A palette of innovative solutions

The spaces to be planted are increasingly varied in terms of size, agro-climatic conditions and uses. Climate change is adding to these factors. The management and sustainability of plantations are linked to the choice of plants and their ability to thrive in the current and future environment, while meeting the desired uses.

By offering new varieties, Sapho is broadening the plant palette and providing new solutions for all those who want to add more plants to our individual or collective living spaces :

To re-enchant, renew and prolong pleasure
Greening small spaces and cultivating interstices
Simplifying everyday gardening
To encourage biodiversity
Adapting to new conditions
Restoring and preserving heritage and landscapes

To re-enchant, renew and prolong pleasure

Among the many ecosystem services, let's not forget the primary capacity of plants to awaken our emotions and create a source of well-being, essential to our lives. That's why we like to select plants that fill us with wonder, awaken and prolong our emotions.

Re-enchanting the garden means choosing, for example, surprising plants such as the Agapanthus BLUE PANACHE® ou GRAPHITE®, the Hydrangea SO LONG® ‘Aya’, or shrubs with variegated foliage or changing colours, etc.

Re-enchanting ranges also means renewing a genus or species by offering new shapes or colours. For example, the FRENCH CABARET® and CHIFFON ranges, with their double or crinkled flowers, rekindle interest in the Hibiscus genus.

Prolonging the pleasure also means choosing particularly long-lasting varieties, such as Jasminum x Starry Night, which offers 4 months of fragrant flowering. In another style, the raspberry-coloured sepals of Abelia ‘Raspberry Profusion’ remain on the plant when the flowers fall. They prolong the interest, providing attractive colour until late autumn.

Greening small spaces and cultivating interstices

Over the last 50 years, private gardens have become smaller and smaller, sometimes being limited to a balcony terrace. At the same time, to make cities denser and yet more human, to combat heat islands, etc., city departments are ‘cultivating the interstices’.

Today, the compactness of plants is becoming an important criterion of choice, as is their ability to withstand cultivation in pots or tubs. This is one of the areas of particular focus for many of the genera and species in the Sapho catalogue. Examples include Forsythia MARÉE D'OR^®, WEEK END^® or MIKADOR^®, Agapanthus PITCHOUNE^® or NINA^®, Hydrangea paniculata PETITE^® Star or POLESTAR^®, Spirea MERLO^® or ZEN'SPIRIT^®, selections of compact Abelia, Lavender MAGICAL^® Posy, Salvia MAGICAL^®...

Similarly, an upright shape is particularly interesting for a line or hedge in a narrow street. Examples include upright selections of Ginkgo biloba ‘Menhir’ or ‘Blagon’, Prunus laurocerasus GENOLIA^® or the ‘tower’ shapes of varieties such as Sambucus nigra BLACK TOWER.

Simplifying everyday gardening

Distylium BLUE CASCADE deserves a place in the landscape palette. Resistant to insects and pathogens, tolerant of drought, it has very healthy evergreen foliage of an original blue-green. Its dense, compact, cascading habit means it can be used as a low hedge or ground cover (down to -15°C). Covering the ground is also a good way of avoiding the need for weeding and protecting the soil. Among the original shapes, Lagerstroemia from the MIMIE^® range have a tapering habit that can be used as ground cover without training pruning.

Faced with a lack of time, desire or knowledge, let's simplify the garden with easier, more robust plants that require little maintenance or treatment. Pittosporum ‘Golf Ball’, our selection of Choisya, Prunus GENOLIA^® and many of the Sapho varieties have been selected for their naturally branched, regular shape, which reduces the need for pruning.

To encourage biodiversity

Diversifying the plant palette increases the resilience of an ecosystem and increases the capacity for animal biodiversity, with plants to feed bees and other pollinators. The Sapho varieties fit into this plant diversity and complement the possibilities in terms of plant strata, flowering periods and fruiting. Early flowering (winter heather, Japanese quince, Forsythia, flowering apple trees, etc.), late summer (single-flowered hibiscus, Caryopteris, Lagerstroemia, panicle hydrangea, Vitex, etc.), autumn/winter (meat heather) or particularly long or remontant flowering (sage, potentilla, lavender) provide a source of food for pollinators.

Shrubs are also an interesting addition to the herbaceous layer: Abelia, Diervilla, Physocarpus, etc. Koelreuteria paniculata ‘Coral Sun’, selected for the colour of its young shoots, also blooms in summer, providing a rich source of honey. Fruiting shrubs (snowberry, St John's wort, elderberry) are popular with birds. Cultivating interstices also means providing corridors for biodiversity!

Adapting to new conditions

In Sapho's criteria, a quality can also be the plant's ability to adapt to different or contrasting conditions. For example, MAGICAL^® Posy lavenders have been selected for their compactness and floriferousness, but also for their resistance to both humidity and heat (in non-calcareous soil). Pittosporum Irish Luck grows just as well in Nice as in Brest or the Paris region. The Lagerstroemia in the INDIYA CHARMS^® range, selected for the quality of their flowering and their earliness, will flower whatever the summer conditions. They even flower in England! They perform well at low temperatures (hardiness from -15°C to adulthood) and are resistant to powdery mildew. The Hydrangea in the EVER BELLES^® and https://www.sapho.fr/gb/trees-and-shrubs/260-hydrangea-macrophylla-so-long-ebony-monmar-.html ranges will even flower in the event of a spring frost, because they also flower on this year's buds. What's more, the extra-thick sepals and foliage of the EVER BELLES^® range mean that they are better able to withstand periods of extreme heat. As a final example, Prunus laurocerasus GENOLIA^® is very popular in northern regions because its upright, vigorous branches mean it can withstand snow loads better.

Restoring and preserving heritage and landscapes

Emerging diseases can sometimes be on such a scale that they threaten the survival of species, or even entire genera. Faced with this decline, which impoverishes our landscapes and our cultural heritage, and also has an impact on animal biodiversity, research into resistant varieties requires substantial, long-term resources, especially when it comes to trees. The long-standing partnership between INRAE and Sapho has enabled the dissemination of new varieties resulting from this research, making it possible to preserve or reintroduce endangered species. A good example is the elm with the varieties LUTECE^® ‘Nanguen’ and VADA^® ‘Wanoux’, INRAE selections published by Sapho, resistant to graphiosis, which are now being replanted on historic sites and in our European countryside. Another is the SAPHYR^® selections of Pyracantha resistant to fire blight. The sudden spread of this disease was devastating French orchards, and Pyracantha trees were a susceptible host to this bacterium. The new objective is now to disseminate varieties of plane trees resistant to fireblight.

While we wait for resistant varieties, it is also worth working on alternative species for use. In temperate climates, selections of Pittosporum tenuifolium (‘Irish Luck’; ‘Golf Ball’; ‘Golden Ball’) can replace boxwood. The new Lonicera GARDEN CLOUDS^® range also has a bright future for borders, topiaries and small hedges.