Founded: In 1868 by George W. Park

Website: www.parkseed.com

Product focus: High quality seeds, plants, and bulbs for reasonable cost-great value for the money. Both the catalog and the website present a full range of seeds and other plant materials, along with hand tools, seed-starter technology, and how-to information. A robust, reliable brand.

Motto: “Your success and pleasure are more to Park than your money”

Address: 1 Parkton Avenue, Greenwood, SC 29647-0001

Telephone: 800.845.3369

Founded in 1868 by George Watt Park, Park Seed Company is an example of true American ingenuity. It all started when a 15-year-old George gathered seeds from his mother’s Pennsylvania garden and sold them to his neighbors. From this humble beginning grew Park’s Floral magazine, which eventually had a circulation of over a million, and the Park Seed catalog, which grew to over 5,000,000 circulation.

How did this Pennsylvania businessman end up in South Carolina? Mary Barratt, whose family lived in what is now South Greenwood, was a County Home Demonstration Agent who wrote Mr. Park asking for some free seeds. He replied that he could not give away his seed, but he could give free advice! Thus began a two-year correspondence that ended with Mr. Park’s coming down to South Carolina, meeting and marrying Mary Barratt in 1918.

Today, Park Seed Company uses not just catalogs, but also the Internet to bring the best annual flowers, vegetables, perennial plants, bulbs, and gardening supplies to American gardeners. Park is known for being the first with new varieties and for having one of the most extensive listings of flowers and vegetables of any retail gardening company in the US. In 1975, Park extended its product line by buying Wayside Gardens, a nursery catalog that sells shrubs, trees, hardy perennials and bulbs.

Though the 9-acre All-America Selections Trial Grounds and Display Gardens are open to the public year round, they are at their peak in June and July, with thousands of flowers, hundreds of vegetables, and scores of container plantings.