Plants Nouveau Has a New Partner

Chris Beytes

Linda Guy, who, with her husband, J., owned Carolina Nurseries and were partners in Novalis, has partnered with Angela Treadwell-Palmer at Plants Nouveau. Linda is now a 50/50 partner in the company, which has officially formed as Plants Nouveau, LLC. Plants Nouveau helps breeders bring their plants to market.



“Angie and I have been friends for a long time,” Linda said. “We started out sharing hotel rooms at trade shows, just so we could visit and swap ideas and that sort of thing. We share a common consideration from the plant breeder/representation side of things. We both realize how much these plants mean to the breeders, and the commitment they’ve made by entrusting us with a big part of their lives.” In the press release announcing the deal, Angela colorfully called the partnership “double-trouble.”

“I think what I bring are the great relationships that I had forged in my past, and a tremendous amount of woody plant material. [Angela] has always focused on the perennial side. So when you put the two of us together, we pretty much have it all, other than the annuals side.”



When asked about led to the closure of Carolina Nursery, owned by her and J., Linda said, “I would say we were probably overleveraged. We were growing so fast, the company was doing so well. About two years before the whole economic breakdown nationwide hit, we did a big expansion, and we had just completed that and had it to pay back. Then Home Depot went pay-by-scan, and we walked away from that business. So it was, I think, a compilation of a few really big things like that that hit us hard, and we just couldn’t recover fast enough.”

She added that they were banking with Wachovia (which was forced to sell out to Wells Fargo in 2008 to avoid failure). “It was just a whole set of bad circumstances, unfortunate circumstances, that just couldn’t be overcome fast enough.”



Linda also said Novalis and the Plants that Work brand, which was part of the Carolina Nursery business is “tied up in the whole liquidation process. And what we don’t know is whether we can peel it out or not. The future of the [trade]marks, such as Plants that Work, is still uncertain. But Novalis is going away. There will not be a management company under Novalis’ brand name ever again.” GT