The value of Proven Winners plant trials

Photo courtesy of Proven Winners

How does Proven Winners decide which plants to trial and where to trial them?

The process of selecting plants for entry into our trials starts by working with breeders and breeders’ agents. We work with about 50 different plant breeders, from large companies to independent breeders from all over the world, to choose plants that we think will meet our performance standards.

We’re constantly searching for improvements to varieties we already offer, as well as new and unique options for the marketplace. In fact, we meet with breeders at least once a year to walk their trials and make selections from their new breeding to bring into our trials the following season.

Once we have selected plants to be entered into our trials, we work with the breeders to arrange for shipment of those plants to our two main trial sites.

The trials are replicated at both of the Proven Winners propagator sites in Michigan and New Hampshire. We also operate a closed trial with the University of Florida where we can test for high heat and humidity performance. 

Why does Proven Winners invest so much time and effort in plant testing and trialing?

From the beginning, Proven Winners has been dedicated to making gardening easy, successful and inspiring for everyone. Meeting this goal starts with offering the best plants we can find. To do this, we need to test these plants to prove their performance. We’ve built a brand around this one idea, and to maintain the power of that brand, we invest a lot of time and resources into the trial process.

Some of the criteria we’re looking for in a great garden plant are ease of growing, long bloom time, heat and cold tolerance, and disease tolerance. Selecting varieties in our trials that meet these criteria allows us to bring to market new varieties that will make consumers successful.

How does plant testing help set growers up for success?

In addition to trialing plants to screen for superior garden and consumer performance, we also focus on production trials to build a list of best growing practices for our supply chain partners, including unrooted cutting farms, young plant producers and our finished grower customers. The first step in our trials is to prove superior garden performance.

Once this has been established, the varieties are entered into production trials to prove that we can be successful in all parts of the supply chain. No matter how great the consumer performance can be for a variety, it is equally important that we can produce that variety reliably and get it into the hands of the gardening consumer.

We want to give our grower customers the best possible tools to grow a high-quality plant. And the only way we can do this is to run the trials to tell us what those best practices are.

Considering the extensive testing and trialing process required to become a Proven Winners plant, why does Proven Winners introduce so many new varieties each year?

New and innovative varieties delight our customers and bring excitement to gardening. While we don’t set out to launch a certain number of new varieties each season, we know there is a demand in the marketplace for all things new.

Whether it’s a new color or a new genus, our customers are looking for those items each year. It’s also important to understand that only about 1% to 2% of our trials actually make it to introduction any given year.

Proven Winners won 555 trial awards last year. What’s the significance of independent trial awards to growers?

Winning these independent trial awards simply offers growers more confidence that they’re making the right decision when selecting our new varieties to grow for their customers. It’s no longer just Proven Winners saying that we’re introducing a great plant; it’s other third-party trial stations joining us in that statement.

Trial awards also demonstrate the performance of varieties in different regions of the country outside of where we have trialed the plants ourselves. This helps the grower select an assortment of plants that they know will perform for their local customer.