Wayside Gardens

Infobox_Company
company_name = Wayside Gardens
company_
company_type = Privately held
foundation = 1920 Mentor, Ohio, USA
location = Greenwood, South Carolina, USA
industry = Mail-Order Gardening
products = Live plants, bulbs, garden art, and accessories
homepage = [http://www.waysidegardens.com/gardening/Wayside/MP.page1/NV.cid.prad00003 www.waysidegardens.com ]

Wayside Gardens is a privately held mail-order gardening company based in Greenwood, South Carolina. Wayside Gardens caters to serious American garden enthusiasts who want the newest, most unusual plants, and also value gardenworthiness. In addition to more than 2,000 varieties of plants, Wayside Gardens also carries garden art and accessories for use in outdoor living spaces. Wayside Gardens distributes millions of catalogs every year and maintains an extensive Internet presence ( [http://www.waysidegardens.com/gardening/Wayside/MP.page1/NV.cid.prad00003 www.waysidegardens.com] ). Since 1975, Wayside Gardens has been part of the Park Seed Company family of brands, which also comprises Park Seed, Park Seed Wholesale, and Park’s Landscapes. The convert|500|acre|km2|sing=on national headquarters site features convert|9|acre|m2 of gardens, including an All-America Selections trial ground, a Rose Garden, a container garden, and numerous other theme gardens.

Company History

In 1920, nurseryman Elmer Schultz and marketer/plantsman Jan Jacobs (J.J.) Grullemans pooled their individual talents and European horticultural backgrounds to form a new company, focused on breeding plants specifically for American garden conditions. The new company was based in Mentor, Ohio, and developed rapidly from a local nursery into a nation-wide mail-order business.

Wayside Gardens issued its first catalog in 1922, a 50-page, black & white edition printed by letterpress. The first four-color illustrations appeared in Wayside’s Imported and Native Bulb Catalog of 1933. In 1951, Fortune magazine acknowledged Wayside Gardens for its breadth, saying, “Wayside’s list of plant material permits it to sell to gardeners in every U.S. climate, and thus carry a truly national, across-the-board nursery business, the only one of its kind.”

First through catalogs and now through its extensive Internet presence, Wayside Gardens has introduced many superior plants to the American gardening public, including: "Lilium regale" in the 1920s; "Anthemis" ‘Moonlight’ and "Berberis Mentoriensis" in the 1930s; "Viburnum x Carcephalum", Ideal Darwin Tulips, and Weatherproof Daffodils, such as ‘Duke of Windsor,’ ‘Wodan,’ and ‘Mother Grullemans’ in the 1940s; "Kniphofia" “Maid of Orleans’ in the 1950s, "Hosta" ‘Royal Standard’ and the famous Rothschild Azaleas in the 1960s; "Campsis" ‘Crimson Trumpet’ in the 1970s; "Hydrangea quercifolia" ‘Snow Queen’ in the 1980s; and David Austin English Roses in the 1990s.

Ten years after the death of J. J. Grullemans, Wayside Gardens became available for purchase. William John Park, then CEO and Chairman of the Board of the Geo. W. Park Seed Company, acquired the ailing company in the autumn of 1975 and transferred it from Mentor, Ohio, to its present home in Greenwood, South Carolina. He realized that the Wayside Gardens live plant product tradition was an excellent complement to the offerings of Park Seed Company, which had been providing seeds and bulbs to the American gardening public since 1868.

References

Wayside Gardens corporate brochure, 1986Park Seed Company Archives