Proven Winners Partners With Walters Gardens To Offer Exclusive Perennials

Zeeland, MI and Sycamore, IL — Proven Winners® and Walters Gardens, Inc. announce an exciting new strategic partnership. Under this partnership, Walters Gardens, Inc., the top source for unique and exclusive perennials in North America, joins with Proven Winners, the leading consumer plant brand, to market superior perennial varieties under the Proven Winners brand name. The goal of this new partnership is to help growers and retailers increase sales and improve profit margins by selling larger quantities of their best perennials.

Proven Winners looked to Walters Gardens, Inc. as the leading wholesale perennial supplier in North America due to their extensive hybridizing program, strong industry contacts, and long history of producing superior quality perennial plants. Walters Gardens, Inc. recognized Proven Winners as the leading consumer plant brand in North America with a similar philosophy of selecting only the best performing plants to offer today’s consumers. As a result of this partnership, Proven Winners is solidified as the most comprehensive brand of exclusive plants with superior genetics for retailers and consumers, offering the best products for every planting need.

“We are very excited to be able to join the Proven Winners family,” said John Walters, CEO of Walters Gardens, Inc. “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.

"Proven Winners has long been impressed with Walters Gardens' strong perennial plant varieties, dedication to breeding, and superior production practices” said Mark Broxon, Executive Director of Proven Winners. “he 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, Inc. and its customers, this move will result in increased promotion of their highest quality perennials through the most 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. Consumers will benefit by having to look only to the one comprehensive, trusted source of plants for all of their gardening needs.

Walters Gardens, Inc. will bring approximately 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 (EuroAmerican Propagators, Four Star Greenhouse, Pleasant View Gardens in the US, and Nordic Nurseries, Dentoom's Greenhouses and Sobkowich Greenhouses in Canada) will also offer many, if not most, of these perennials to their customers. In addition to offering Proven Winners Perennials, Walters Gardens, Inc. will continue to provide their customers with a broad range of over 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 between Proven Winners and Walters Gardens, Inc. officially begins in July 2011 for the 2011–2012 selling season. Proven Winners Perennials varieties offered by Walters Gardens, Inc. will be introduced at California Spring Trials (CAST) in March, 2011 as well as in each of their 2011–2012 catalogs. The spring 2012 selling season will be supported by extensive marketing efforts by both Proven Winners and Walters Gardens, Inc. Wholesale growers and retailers are encouraged to take advantage of this promotion and to have an adequate supply of Proven Winners Perennials available to meet the demand.

About Walters Gardens, Inc.

Walters Gardens, Inc. is widely recognized as the leading wholesale perennial grower in North America. They offer a broad selection of over 1,000 varieties of hardy and tender perennials including many of their own genetics like Brunnera m. ‘Jack Frost’ PP 13859, Hosta ‘Revolution’, and Leucanthemum s. ‘Banana Cream’ PPAF. Established in 1946, the company is now run by the second generation of the Walters family assisted by over 200 other growers, hybridizers, plant health experts, customer service staff, and many other valuable employees. They ship to wholesale and retail customers throughout the US and Canada.

ABOUT PROVEN WINNERS®

Proven Winners is a brand that encompasses all that is gardening. Annuals, perennials and flowering shrubs are marketed and advertised to help beginning and expert gardeners have success. In 2010, they celebrated their 18th anniversary and look forward to finding new and innovative ways to make gardening remain the #1 hobby. For more information, go to
www.provenwinners.com.

Source: Proven Winners