Breeder Solutions

Spring Meadow Nursery

Uniquely Qualified to Introduce Your New Plant

Plant breeding is an art, a science, and a passion for breeders like you. When it comes time to take the next step and see if your plant is ready to take its place in landscape and gardens across North America, you need a partner you can trust. We’re proud to say that Spring Meadow Nursery provides a suite of solutions to turn your new plant into the next great new plant introduction. We’ve done it for dozens of breeders around the world, and we can do it for you, too.

Contents

  1. Breeder Representation
  2. Market Leadership
  3. Broad Distribution Channels
  4. Promotion, Marketing, and Branding Generate Demand
  5. New Plants, Trialing, and Success

Breeder Representation

  1. Plant breeders are the life-blood of Spring Meadow’s business. Since the 1990s, our business has been founded on bringing the best new woody plants to market. We try our very best to make you successful so that you’ll continue to bring us new plants and encourage other breeders to do so as well.
  2. When you bring your plant to Spring Meadow, we will be building a relationship together. Like all good partnerships, that will be built on mutual trust and honesty. Our reputation with breeders is crucial to our long-term success, and we will never sacrifice that for quick profits.
  3. We work with breeders in Japan, Korea, China, England, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Belgium, France, Italy, Spain, the Czech Republic, Israel, Serbia, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. We proudly represent backyard hobbyist breeders, state governments and universities, and everyone in between.
  4. There are no upfront costs to bring your plant to Spring Meadow. If we introduce your plant, we cover all the protection costs, which are repaid from initial royalties. We do all the paperwork, licensing, and royalty collection for you, and you receive annual sales reports and royalty checks.
  5. Spring Meadow works with an international network of licensed growers who are ready to produce, promote, and distribute your new plant. We’ll take care of the patents and breeder’s rights applications in the U.S. and in Canada, Europe, China, Japan, Korea, and Oceana, as appropriate to your plant.
  6. As your partner in this process, if Spring Meadow is not the best option to introduce your plant, we’ll not only tell you - we will also help you find the right solution and provide you with objective advice.
  7. Once the plant protection costs are paid off, we send you royalties for the life of the patent. Each year, we pay out millions of dollars to our breeder-partners.
  8. We are proud of the breeders whose plants we have introduced, and take every opportunity to tell their story. That’s why you’ll see their names and photos in our catalog and on our website, as well as see them featured on social media, video, and in our podcast, Gardening Simplified.

Market Leadership

  1. Spring Meadow is the recognized market leader and authority for flowering shrubs and evergreens.  For over 35 years, we have remained focused on this product group and understand this market better than anyone else.
  2. The industry looks to Spring Meadow Nursery for the best new plants; our catalog is a respected reference for flowering shrubs.
  3. We travel the world visiting breeders, nurseries, and collectors to maintain an up-to-date knowledge of flowering shrubs, their production, and market.
  4. We take stewardship seriously: Spring Meadow created a $1,000,000 research endowment with HRI and a scholarship for horticulture students. That’s what market leaders do. Our team has served in leadership positions with IPPS international, Southern, and Eastern regions, AmericanHort, GardenComm, the Horticulture Research Institute, the J.C. Raulston Arboretum, and The National Arboretum.  We support horticulture research by funding projects at Michigan State University, North Carolina State University, the University of Minnesota, the University of Connecticut, and the University of Georgia.
  5. Nursery Management and Professional magazine named Spring Meadow 2003 Grower of the Year and in 2005 named us a Top 5 Industry Success Story. Our plant introduction program was awarded a prestigious Innovation Award.

Broad Distribution Channels

  1. As a propagation nursery with 45 acres of state-of-the-art greenhouses, we have the capacity to produce well over 15 million plants per year. Our potted liners are the ideal size for fast and easy distribution. We can get your plant into production quickly, and scale it just as fast.
  2. With over two thousand active customers, your plant will be grown by the most respected nurseries in North America and get to market quickly and abundantly.
  3. In addition to our own production, our North American supply chain includes a network of 80 licensed growers that can generates huge production numbers. This, combined with our grower networks in Europe, Japan, China, South Korea, and Oceana, provides the distribution and availability that is so critical for a plant’s – and breeder’s - success.

Promotion, Marketing, and Branding Generate Demand

  1. Spring Meadow Nursery has the exclusive rights to market woody plants under the Proven Winners brand, which is backed by millions of dollars in marketing and promotion each year. Plus, Proven Winners is the only brand that offers annuals, perennials, shrubs, trees, and houseplants, which builds recognition and trust among consumers, no matter which type of plant first introduces them to the brand.
  2. Each variety we introduce gets its own promotional plan that is funded by built-in marketing fees. This individualized, demand-generating marketing strategy incentivizes growers and retailers to buy more and sell more, bringing in more royalty income for the breeder.
  3. No other brand does more marketing in more places than Proven Winners. Our messaging reaches trade and consumers through television, radio, podcasts, blogs, social media, YouTube, billboards, magazines, and newspapers, generating over 10 billion impressions each year.
  4. In a study funded by Scott’s Miracle-Gro and published in Garden Center Magazine, Proven Winners was voted North America’s #1 plant brand.
  5. Proven Winners plants are found in more garden centers and in more gardening publications than any other plant brand. Presence at retail is critical; it is the single most important factor in predicting a consumer purchase.   
  6. While some companies limit supply to maintain premium pricing, we instead increase demand. This results in premium pricing for growers and retailers and more royalty income for the breeder.

New Plants, Trialing, and Success

Spring Meadow will thoroughly trial and fairly evaluate your plant through propagation, container, field, and garden trials. Our state-of-the-art 10-acre research and development facility allows for trialing under many different conditions. We also have trialing sites in Minnesota, Florida, and Texas. Only those plants that outperform what is already on the market and provide growers, retailer and consumers value make the cut.

The better the plant, the better the sales, and the higher the royalties. While we will always do our utmost to promote you plant and get it in the supply chain, the market determines success. If and when a better plant comes along, your plant may be discontinued. The best plant wins.

It is typically the plants that change the market that generate the most income. The first root-rot resistant Rhododendron is a good example of a market-changing plant, as are the first pink ‘Annabelle’ hydrangea or the first dwarf Aronia. Even in these cases, though, each plant was improved upon by the breeder, so keep breeding and improving. The best breeders and the best plants are rewarded accordingly.

We will never breed with your plant just to make a copycat to get out of paying you. If, however, we think your plant is almost there but still needs some work, with your permission, our breeding department will work with your plant. If this results in an improved introduction, we will share the royalties with you to compensate you for your hard work. This additional breeding can extend the life of our breeder fee payments.   

Let us bring all the pieces of success together for you – trust your new plant introductions to Spring Meadow! We’ll take care of everything so you can focus on your passion of creating and growing great plants.

Want to talk to us about partnering on a new woody plant you’ve discovered? Contact Dr. Judson LeCompte, Assistant New Product Development Manager. All inquiries are kept in strict confidence.

e-mail Judson