Ball Acquires Must Have Perennials

Chris Beytes

Continuing its investment in the still-hot perennials market, Ball Horticultural Company has just added Must Have Perennials to the lineup. It will join Darwin Perennials and Kieft Seed, Ball’s other providers of perennials, and will be aligned as part of Ball’s Outback Plants division, which, like Must Have, sources genetics from third-party breeders. Must Have represents the vegetative and tissue culture perennial genetics from dozens of breeders around the world.

Jacco Kuipers, Director of Strategic Business Analysis, explained, “Ball and Aris/Yoder Brothers have been in close partnership for years. When we acquired the farm now called Darwin Colombia from Aris back in 2014, the farm already was the exclusive producer for the Must Have Perennials unrooted cutting assortment. We have continued to carry new and existing varieties at our Colombia farm, so there was a natural familiarity with the assortment, the team and the essence of Must Have Perennials. Furthermore, Must Have Perennials is a natural expansion of the breeder agency work our Outback Plants division does, which further strengthened our resolve of seeing Ball as a great steward of this business.”

Taking a historical step back to 1995, you will recall that Must Have Perennials started out as Blooms of Bressingham, founded by Adrian Bloom and named for his family’s Bressingham Gardens & Nursery in the UK. Blooms was acquired by Yoder Brothers, the company that morphed into Aris. Aris changed the name of the division to Must Have Perennials because the Blooms of Bressingham name was no longer being supported.

As part of the acquisition, Justin Wisniewski will join Ball as general manager/product manager for Must Have Perennials, a job he’s been doing for five years. GT