Proven Winners Embraces Neonic-Free Plants

For the past few years I’ve had the opportunity to work with Proven Winners, a premier plant company that is committed to offering gardeners high performing annuals, perennials and shrubs. Their plants have passed extensive trials from coast to coast in the U.S. as well as in Germany and Japan. No surprise that I use many of them in my award-winning gardens.

I was thrilled when Proven Winners made the decision to stop using neonicotinoids on all young plants (liners) produced by Proven Winners propagator companies. Jeanine Standard, a spokesperson for Proven Winners states the following: “We are very proud to say that we do not use neonics on liners. And we do not use neonics on any plants we finish for garden centers to sell to gardeners. But that is a small number of plants when compared to the number of liners which leave our 5 facilities in North America. We do sell our liners to greenhouse growers, and also to retailers who grow for their own purposes. So the best thing to say is to have the gardener ask about neonic use at the garden center where they are purchasing their plants.” (This excerpt was taken from an article posted by North Coast Gardening in 2015). Three of the largest growers for Proven Winners, EuroAmerican Propagators (CA), Pleasant View Gardens (NH, pictured) and Walters Gardens (a huge perennial grower located in MI) are no longer using neonics on PW plants.

Proven Winners has many terrific articles and videos on their web site about bee-friendly gardening and practices.

To check out a list of growers and garden centers that have committed to not using neonics (and those that still do!) posted in the above article by North Coast Gardening, click here .