Proven Winners Plants Postulations

This week I received a shipment of flowers from Proven Winners. Which is really cool, and really nice that they contacted me about it ahead of time to tell me they were doing this. Last year (when I wasn’t putting anything on the blog) I had near about $200 worth of plants sent to me and I had absolutely no idea who sent them. My mother even freaked out for a short bit that I had a stalker. But a stalker who sends me free flowers is a stalker I like. So thank you flower sending stalker, the Easy Elegance roses are doing beautifully, the Vanilla Strawberry Hydrangea is still small but healthy and the other plants survived the winter, which if they can survive a Cleveland winter – you have a winner.

Which brings us back to Proven Winners, which in my opinion are kind of like the Rolls Royce of flowers – absolutely gorgeous and freaking expensive. But that is how you get ahead in the flower world.

In today’s world, we want to be different and better than the next guy over. It is why things like Etsy and designer fashions do so well, it is why we helicopter parent, it is why we buy Priuses (or is it Prii?). We want to be better, cooler and different, just like everyone else. We don’t want to be boring. Every big box store in the country can sell you petunias and begonias, but they are boring. When you get into gardening, you want your garden to be spectacular and special, and so there are lots of companies that cater to that want – and few do it better that Proven Winners.

Back in the day (and for those of you under 20 or over 40, that would be before the internet), if you wanted “special” for your garden, you had 3 choices.   One, was to grow it from seed, even then you had to resort to the other two I am about to mention in order to get the seeds. Two, you had to locate a special organization that specialized in the type of plant you wanted, like The American Hemerocallis Society or the American Iris Society, and then either join, wade through their often tedious catalogs or beg a member to sell or trade (fat chance on that one because you didn’t have anything cool yet to trade) one of their prized unique plants to you. Then there was three, which was somehow discover how to get on the mailing list of obscure plant catalogs. Most people, even if they really liked gardening thought this all was too hard and so were very happy with their boring. Then came the internet, and like it did with all other aspects of our life, it changed everything.

Suddenly exciting was available to everyone, be it plants, clothes or home decor. And when something become available, it becomes popular and the demand for it makes it so there is more available. Awesome how that works. And this has born companies  like Proven Winners who can take advantage, indirectly, of the internet suddenly making everything available to everyone – for a premium, which is how capitalism works.

When I have the spare money, it often gets spent  on Proven Winner plants, mainly because I don’t want to be boring either and just a little because they actually are worth it. For as pretty as they are, they are actually really durable. So yeah, I was very, very happy when they called to ask if I would like some of their plants. It’s not every day someone offers you a Roll Royce, and at least this time I don’t have to contemplate who my new secret admirer is.