Terra Nova Nurseries celebrates 25 years

Oregon-based plant breeder Terra Nova Nurseries recently announced the 25th anniversary of its founding. This year marks a quarter century of business since the company’s Ken Brown and Dan Heims formed a professional alliance.

Along with co-founders Jody Brown and Lynne Bartenstein, they vertically integrated a breeding company and tissue culture facility, combining forces to generate and introduce a stable of more than 1,000 varieties of new perennials and annuals. Many of these new plants have won national and international awards, and ongoing breeding accomplishments have put genera such as heuchera and tiarella on the horticulture map.

Terra Nova Nurseries’ mission during the years has involved best-of-breeding, creative plant introduction marketing, and organizational management practices.

The Terra Nova Nurseries team produces dozens of new selections each year through expert flower breeding and laboratory research. These varieties are then propagated through tissue culture in labs to make large quantities of healthy plants available to finishing growers, garden center retailers, landscape professionals, home gardeners, botanical gardens, and others throughout the world.

According to Brown and Heims, breeding new plants is the lifeblood of the horticulture industry. As the Terra Nova Nurseries lab produces and releases introductions of exclusive perennial and annual selections, the nursery’s wholesale grower customers are kept up-to-date regarding the latest progress, offering them “sneak peeks” at what is to come in the following season and year.

The newest catalog was created to serve as a systemized and resourceful sales tool. Its breeder-focused product selection guide offers easy access to organized genera grouped alphabetically, but also now by size, color, habit, top-sellers, photography, newest varieties, and USDA horticultural zones.

Brown and Heims attribute the company’s proactive momentum to their personnel, who also includes a dedicated sales staff and office team as well as nursery team members and their managers who create the plants for which Terra Nova Nurseries has become known during the past 25 years.