Proven Winners Partnering On Perennials

Walters Gardens, a perennial producer located in Zeeland, Mich., has partnered with Proven Winners to market perennial varieties under the Proven Winners brand name.

The goal of the new partnership is to help growers and retailers increase sales and improve profit margins by selling larger quantities of their best perennials.

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“We are very excited to be able to join the Proven Winners family,” says John Walters, CEO of Walters Gardens. “Our plant hybridizing program is now in its sixth season and we have extensive breeder contacts within the industry. We recognized the need to bring these superior new perennial varieties to the marketplace through a venue that is consumer driven and uses a value-added approach. Proven Winners distinguishes itself in a competitive marketplace by helping the retailer become a destination for consumers looking for quality and top performing plants for their gardens.”

Adds Mark Broxon, Proven Winners’ executive director: “Proven Winners has long been impressed with Walters Gardens’ strong perennial plant varieties, dedication to breeding and superior production practices. The annual and flowering shrub markets have been the strength of the Proven Winners brand. By bringing the leading perennial supplier into the Proven Winners family, consumers will be able to find top-quality perennials under a single brand they know and trust, resulting in an even stronger brand for growers and retailers.”

For Walters Gardens and its customers, this move will result in increased promotion of their highest quality perennials via a highly recognized consumer brand. For Proven Winners, this new partnership expands the brand and helps to create more store-within-a-store destination garden centers with a focus on high value, profitable Proven Winners plants.

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Walters Gardens will bring about 30 of its best, most unique varieties to the existing line of Proven Winners Perennials in 2011, and the program will expand as more new varieties are added each year.

The Proven Winners propagator network will also offer many, if not most, of these perennials to their customers. In addition to offering Proven Winners perennials, Walters Gardens will continue to provide customers with more than 1,000 varieties of perennials, ornamental grasses, vines and groundcovers. All plants offered by Walters Gardens, Inc. will continue to be sold as bare root and plug liners through their existing sales networks.

The partnership officially begins in July 2011 for the 2011-2012 selling season. Proven Winners perennial varieties offered by Walters Gardens will be introduced at California Spring Trials in March 2011.

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