Park Seed Company

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Park Seed Company

Type	Privately Held
Founded	1868 Libonia, Pennsylvania USA
Headquarters	Greenwood, South Carolina, USA
Industry	Mail-Order Gardening
Products	Seeds, plants, garden art, and accessories
Website	www.parkseed.com

Park Seed Company is a privately held mail-order gardening company based in Greenwood, South Carolina. As the name implies, Park Seed specializes in garden seeds, offering more than 1,100 varieties of flower, vegetable, and herb seeds, plus a large selection of bulbs, live plants, and gardening accessories. Park Seed Company distributes millions of catalogs every year and maintains an extensive Internet presence (www.parkseed.com). In addition to the core Park Seed retail brand, Park Seed Company also comprises Wayside Gardens, Park Seed Wholesale and Park’s Landscapes. The 500-acre national headquarters site features 9 acres of gardens, including an All-America Selections trial ground, a Rose Garden, a container garden, and numerous other theme gardens.

1 History

[edit] History

Park Seed Company got its start in 1868 when 15-year-old George Watt Park decided to sell seeds he had harvested from his backyard garden in Libonia, Pennsylvania. Young George bought a hand press and printed a list of the seeds that he wanted to sell. In addition to circulating this list to friends and neighbors, he also bought an advertisement in The Rural American for $3.50. The ad resulted in $6.50 in seed orders. With this success, George Watt Park found his life's work.

The cover of the January 1900 Park's Floral Magazine features a portrait of the founder, George Watt Park. From Park Seed Company archives.

Park Seed Company published its first small catalog in 1868. The book contained just 8 pages and used 2 illustrations—wood cuts of an aster and a pansy. In 1871, Park Seed initiated a monthly publication called The Floral Gazette. Definitely more magazine than catalog, The Floral Gazette offered its readers a forum for sharing gardening experiences and a seed exchange column that encouraged readers to trade seeds, bulbs and plants. It also carried a significant amount of advertising, including ads from other purveyors of seed. By 1877, the name had changed to Park’s Floral Magazine and circulation had grown to 20,000. By 1918, that figure hit 800,000.

The growing number of catalogs brought in ever-increasing numbers of orders, and by 1900, it was clear that the business had outgrown the small post office at Libonia. Park Seed Company moved to La Park (now Paradise), Pennsylvania in 1902.

In 1918, George Watt Park married Mary Barratt, a young county home demonstration agent from South Carolina. Mary moved to La Park and became both a partner in the business and the mother of two sons: George Barratt Park and William John Park.

Eventually becoming fatigued with cold Pennsylvania winters, the Park family moved to Dunedin, Florida, and produced a catalog there in 1923. Unfortunately, while the family enjoyed Florida, the heat and humidity proved to be highly unsuitable for storing seeds. In looking for a better environment for the business, they settled on Mary’s hometown of Greenwood, South Carolina, and moved the business there in 1924.

Park Seed Company's South Carolina headquarters is surrounded by 9 acres of gardens. Photo by Christa Hanson.

For the first 25 years in Greenwood, Park Seed Company occupied a large old house. Then in 1950, they made a move to a more modern storefront location and entered the era of environmental control for seed quality.

Thousands of visitors enjoy the gardens at Park Seed Company during the South Carolina Festival of Flowers each June. Photo by Ashley Sheets.

Eventually, Park Seed obtained 500 acres on the northern edge of Greenwood, and designed and built there a total business complex to house the company’s offices, research facilities, seed storage and processing areas, temperature-controlled areas for storing plants and bulbs, computer facilities, mailorder department, and customer service facility, plus its catalog preparation area and a showroom and reception area for its rapidly growing wholesale division. The core buildings of this campus were completed in 1961. The company resides there today, continually expanding and renewing the complex to meet changing requirements.

In 1975, Wayside Gardens, a mail-order company in Mentor, Ohio, came on the market and was acquired by Park Seed. Wayside Gardens' product line of perennials, bulbs, trees, and shrubs was a good complement to Park Seed Company's seeds. Wayside Gardens was moved to the Greenwood, SC facility.