Why Proven Winners Won’t Be at California Spring Trials 2020
July 24, 2019 
A breakthrough in breeding allows for production of Sunstar Pentas by Northern and Southern growers without the need for supplemental lighting. These pentas are heat and humidity tolerant and more accepting of cooler temperatures.
Proven Winners announced at Cultivate’19 its plans to not participate in California Spring Trials in 2020. The decision was made after careful consideration by the team of the best way to communicate with its customers.
Proven Winners produces annuals, perennials, and shrub liners for wholesale growers with its founding propagation companies – Four Star Greenhouse in Carleton, MI, and Pleasant View Gardens in Loudon, NH, in addition to two licensees in Canada, Nordic Nurseries and Sobkowich Greenhouses. It also has partnerships with Spring Meadow Nursery, which manages its ColorChoice shrubs brand, and Walters Gardens, which manages its Proven Winners Perennials line. The company is well-known in retail markets for its consumer plant brand.
Not everyone that buys Proven Winners’ plants is able to attend the spring trials to see the new varieties every year, particularly garden center retailers and landscapers, says Jeanine Standard, Media and Public Relations lead for Proven Winners. The company is also cognizant of the high expense for its customers to attend California Spring Trials, and it has noticed a decline in attendance numbers. These reasons prompted Proven Winners to consider a new approach to letting people know about its new plant varieties.
Standard says Proven Winners plans to produce a high-quality video and additional materials to showcase its new varieties and programs. It also has a specialized new varieties app only for brokers that will help it share information about new plants. Some advantages Proven Winners sees of using these methods is that more people can access the information, and they can digest it at their leisure without the plant-information overload sometimes experienced at spring trials. Also, the plants can be shown at their best without relying on the weather to cooperate.
“We think we can be more effective in our efforts,” Standard says. “Producing a high-quality video allows us to present a consistent message and roll out our products to additional audiences. We thought it was worth trying a different way to communicate.”
Proven Winners has not made any decisions yet on the timing of the release of the video, but it is in the process of gathering footage for it with the help of its propagation partners.
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