{"id":166158,"date":"2018-08-14T09:37:17","date_gmt":"2018-08-14T13:37:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/?p=166158"},"modified":"2023-03-01T12:21:08","modified_gmt":"2023-03-01T17:21:08","slug":"think-pink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/news\/think-pink\/","title":{"rendered":"Think Pink"},"content":{"rendered":"

An NC State University-bred twist on a classic native garden shrub has been a hit with consumers \u2013 and for breast cancer research.<\/p>\n

The pink hydrangea, known as Invincibelle Spirit, was developed at NC State about 10 years ago. Back then, a leading flowering shrubs brand, Proven Winners Color Choice, committed to donating $1 from each purchase of the hydrangea to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Those donations recently topped the company\u2019s goal of $1 million.<\/p>\n

Invincibelle Spirit is a hybrid of a typically white-flowered hydrangea that\u2019s a native of the mountains. It\u2019s considered to be tough and adaptable, impervious to cold and has hot-pink flowers that last from early summer to frost.<\/p>\n

NC State\u2019s Tom Ranney, the J.C. Raulston Distinguished Professor in the university’s\u00a0Department of Horticultural Science<\/a><\/u>, led the effort to create the unique variety at the Mountain Horticultural Crops Research and Extension Center in Mills River.<\/p>\n

While people don\u2019t ordinarily think of ornamental plants as crops, they are actually part of the largest agricultural commodity in North Carolina, Ranney points out. The green industry \u2013 nursery, greenhouse and Christmas trees \u2013 has a wholesale value of more than $700 million per year, and it provides jobs for 125,000 employees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe economic impacts of new varieties from NC State\u2019s Department of Horticultural Science are substantial,\u201d Ranney says. \u201cThe total retail value of our landscape plant introductions since 2004 is now over $377 million. Many of these are recent introductions that are just picking up steam and should generate sales for 20 to 30 years, and much of our best material is still in the pipeline.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n \"<\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false,"raw":"An NC State University-bred twist on a classic native garden shrub has been a hit with consumers \u2013 and for breast cancer research.\r\n\r\nThe pink hydrangea, known as Invincibelle Spirit, was developed at NC State about 10 years ago. Back then, a leading flowering shrubs brand, Proven Winners Color Choice, committed to donating $1 from each purchase of the hydrangea to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Those donations recently topped the company\u2019s goal of $1 million.\r\n\r\nInvincibelle Spirit is a hybrid of a typically white-flowered hydrangea that\u2019s a native of the mountains. It\u2019s considered to be tough and adaptable, impervious to cold and has hot-pink flowers that last from early summer to frost.\r\n\r\nNC State\u2019s Tom Ranney, the J.C. Raulston Distinguished Professor in the university's\u00a0Department of Horticultural Science<\/a><\/u>, led the effort to create the unique variety at the Mountain Horticultural Crops Research and Extension Center in Mills River.\r\n\r\nWhile people don\u2019t ordinarily think of ornamental plants as crops, they are actually part of the largest agricultural commodity in North Carolina, Ranney points out. The green industry \u2013 nursery, greenhouse and Christmas trees \u2013 has a wholesale value of more than $700 million per year, and it provides jobs for 125,000 employees.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe economic impacts of new varieties from NC State\u2019s Department of Horticultural Science are substantial,\u201d Ranney says. \u201cThe total retail value of our landscape plant introductions since 2004 is now over $377 million. Many of these are recent introductions that are just picking up steam and should generate sales for 20 to 30 years, and much of our best material is still in the pipeline.\u201d\r\n\r\n[video-image id='' caption='false']https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Y2eUOo7JFCw[\/video-image]"},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An NC State University-bred twist on a classic native garden shrub has been a hit with consumers \u2013 and for breast cancer research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":166195,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1171,1181,1163],"tags":[1862,216],"_ncst_magazine_issue":[],"coauthors":[1651],"class_list":["post-166158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-and-staff","category-newswire","category-research","tag-_from-newswire-collection-13","tag-department-of-horticultural-science"],"displayCategory":null,"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166158"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":166196,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166158\/revisions\/166196"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166158"},{"taxonomy":"_ncst_magazine_issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_ncst_magazine_issue?post=166158"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=166158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}