HOMEGROWN WITH BONNIE PLANTS

GROW MORE. FEED MORE. WITH BONNIE PLANTS

BY SAVANNAH BURGESS

Bonnie Plants was founded in 1918 by Bonnie and Livingston Paulk in Union Springs, Alabama. The farm was started in their backyard with just two pounds of cabbage seed. Bonnie Plants was founded on the principle of providing access for home gardeners to fresh vegetables. Acreage of the early Bonnie Plant Farm was dedicated to a large garden for the farm’s employees, and Livingston Paulk raised hogs and cattle to share as well.

Bonnie has grown substantially since our humble beginnings. We now have 85 greenhouse operations across 42 states. We are now considered the largest producer of vegetable and herb plants for home gardeners.

We have a fleet of 750+ box trucks that take our plants from growing station to store. We service almost 20,000 retailers every year in-store and online. Those retailers include the Co-op, Lowe’s, Home Depot, Walmart, Tractor Supply Company, Amazon and many more!

Our mission today is simple, but powerful: Enhancing people’s lives through the power of plants.

In 2021, Bonnie Plants founded the Bonnie Plants Foundation, a 501c-3 nonprofit, focused on giving back to the communities in which we live and work. One of the key pillars of the Bonnie Plants Foundation is AmpleHarvest.org—a nationwide registry that uses technology to enable home and community gardeners to share their surplus harvests with nearby food pantries instead of letting them go to waste. When food pantries were struggling to meet the overwhelming demands from the pandemic, Bonnie Plants united with AmpleHarvest. org to leverage the power of our home gardening consumers to help the fight against food insecurity in our communities.

Since the inception of the Bonnie Plants x AmpleHarvest.org partnership:

• Through the Bonnie Plants Foundation, our support has resulted in over 7,500,000 servings of fresh produce to hungry people in the U.S.

• Spread the AmpleHarvest.org message to over 300 million people across the country through media outreach.

• In collaboration with Scotts Miracle-Gro, we have donated over 50,000 pounds of fresh produce to food pantries across the country.

LOCAL IMPACT: During the 2023 spring season alone, our test garden in Union Springs, Alabama has boasted 5,000 pounds of donated produce, while our corporate headquarters demonstration garden in Opelika, Alabama has donated over 1,000 pounds of fresh produce to the Food Bank of East Alabama.

If your garden boasts more harvests than you know what to do with, visit AmpleHarvest.org to find a food pantry near you! Feel good knowing you’re fighting food insecurity in your community, while helping to strengthen the legacy Bonnie and Livingston Paulk left behind.