December marks the end of a productive year and encourages reflection as we look back at 2019. This year marked the official launch of the NewGen™ Boxwood brand and the unveiling of its first two introductions, NewGen Freedom® and NewGen Independence®. These plants will become officially available spring of 2020, from our 5 partner growers, Overdevest Nursery in NJ, Prides Corner Farms in CT, Saunders Brothers, Inc. in VA, Sheridan Nursery in Ontario, and Willoway Nursery in OH. With the expectation of a promising future, lets recap on how we got to where we are.
Winter:
We started off the year with our first official announcement of the NewGen™ brand at the Mid-Atlantic Nursery Trade Show (MANTS) in Baltimore, MD. With over 10,000 participants at the show, this was a great opportunity to connect with fellow industry members and share what we have been working on. Over 70 years in the making, it was exciting to finally share our answer to many issues facing boxwood in today’s world. Our team connected with other growers and worked to recruit licensees to expand the brand to reach consumers all over the US and Canada. After MANTS we headed to Greensboro, NC for the Green & Growin’ show to connect with more growers and share our story.
Winter was also a busy season as we launched our official website to share our message and bring the industry the most up to date information on boxwood. Our goal is to grow this website into a tool that can be utilized by all seeking information on boxwood cultivar care, research, history, and other topics of interest.
Spring:
Spring is always a busy time of year in the green industry and that rang true for NewGen™ as well. Building from the excitement of the winter trade shows, NewGen™ and Saunders Brothers, Inc. were featured in several industry-focused media channels. The research Saunders Brothers has done on Boxwood Blight and Boxwood Leafminer (that lead to the creation of the brand), picked up attention from publications like Nursery Management, Grower Talks, Greenhouse Grower, and even Garden & Gun magazine.
March marked the beginning of our monthly e-newsletter, that allows us to share with consumers news about NewGen™, share tips on care, and the latest reports on boxwood research.
Spring also gave us the chance to further relationships made at the trade shows and industry events, encouraging many growers to join the NewGen™ network. We are grateful to be working with wonderful, like-minded growers in the U.S. and Canada to provide NewGen™ Boxwood to consumers everywhere.
Summer:
Things started heating up this summer with the official unveiling of the first two selections of the NewGen™ brand. At the Cultivate event in Columbus, OH, NewGen Independence® and NewGen Freedom® made their debut and received the Retail Choice award from the Garden Center Group. These two introductions mark the culmination of years of testing and trialing, and we are proud to have been chosen out of 70 participants. Selected for their disease tolerance, pest resistance, WOW factor in the landscape, and grower friendliness, these plants truly provide solutions for many of the struggles gardeners face today.
In addition to introducing the first two NewGen™ selections, we produced a video that shares our story of where we began, how we got here, and what our hopes are for the future. So much of what we do is rooted in our story and we want to share that message with both growers and consumers. The passion to understand the problems faced by boxwood years ago unwittingly sparked the creation of the problem-solving plants we have today.
Fall:
Temperatures cooled, leaves began to change colors, and the dust from the exciting year began to settle. We took this opportunity to open our doors and invite both network and partner growers to Virginia to share more about the NewGen™ program. In October, Saunders Brothers welcomed growers from all over the US to participate in the first annual NewGen™ Field Day, providing an opportunity to build relationships, share ideas, and learn more about boxwood production.
We reflect on 2019 and are grateful to all of those that have made it such a successful year. We thank our partner growers for working with us as we launched our brand. We appreciate the grower network that has joined us to produce this exceptional line of plants. We are especially thankful for the years of dedication to boxwood research that Saunders Brothers has pursued, culminating in the creation of Saunders Genetics and the NewGen™ brand.
With a successful first year behind us, we focus our sights on 2020., when NewGen™ will officially be available to be planted in gardens and landscapes everywhere. Boxwood have faced many setbacks in the past decade, but NewGen™ is here to show you that growers everywhere can succeed with boxwood. The boxwood revolution has officially begun!
