Four Star Greenhouse was originally founded by Tom Smith in 1977 as Smith’s Greenhouse with 60,000 square feet of growing area.  In these early years, the focus was mostly on finished crops of bedding plants from seed sold at market.  In 1982, Tom and Sharon Smith became the founders and respective president and vice-president of Four Star Greenhouse, Inc.   The company’s focus broadened to producing starter plants or “plugs” to sell to growers.  At that time most of the plants were produced from seed and Four Star had grown to approximately 140,000 square feet of growing space (now our Indian Trails facility).

In the late 1980’s,  Four Star began a relationship with Kientzler in Germany producing New Guinea Impatiens bred by Ludwig Kientzler.  The production of vegetatively propagated annuals from clean stock plants at Four Star began with this relationship.  Kientzler was using thermo-therapy as needed and tissue culture reproduction to maintain and produce each cultivar.  This allowed for the consistent production of virus free vegetative plant material, which remains one of the cornerstones of Four Star plant production.  Expansion continued to occur on a regular basis, adding approximately 124,000 square feet of additional growing space.

Because of the relationship with Kientzler, Tom was able to travel to Europe and meet other breeders working on new and unique vegetative annuals.  This exposure led to the eventual creation of Proven Winners®.  The Proven Winners brand is owned by three US plant propagators - EuroAmerican in Bonsall, CA, Four Star Greenhouse in Carleton, MI, and Pleasant View Gardens in Loudon, NH.  These companies founded Proven Winners in 1992, with the objective to establish a network that could obtain and distribute new and unusual plants with excellent garden performance within the United States.  Shortly thereafter, three Canadian companies were licensed to grow and sell Proven Winners.

At the time, the floriculture industry’s goal was to grow plants that looked great on the retail shelf with a focus on grower performance in packs.  This change in focus from grower ‘pack’ performance to emphasis on consumer garden performance was new to the industry.  Many growers considered the plants difficult to grow.  Additionally, these vegetative introductions were more expensive than seed annuals due to the cost of labor to harvest cuttings.  That said, however, the Proven Winners plant brand has become the number one plant brand in North America today by introducing the best, most unique, high performing plants for the landscape and garden.  No other plant line goes through the same rigorous plant selection and trial process which takes 2 to 3 years and occurs at facilities in the US and Canada, as well as at trial stations in Europe, South Africa, and Japan.

On the retail sales level, Proven Winners and Proven Selections (a complementary brand which consists of regional favorite varieties that complement Proven Winners) sales are greater than a half-billion dollars annually.  In 2004, a shrub line was added to the Proven Winners family and Spring Meadow Nursery in Grand Haven, MI was added as a propagator licensee of Proven Winners ColorChoice® shrubs.

In 1997, construction at the Sigler Road location began.  As of 2008, the Sigler Road facility has approximately 406,000 square feet of state of the art production greenhouses.  These greenhouses are built with all the newest technology, including heated floors and flood floors to sub-irrigate crops.  In combination with the original Indian Trails facility, Four Star now has 16 acres of indoor growing area and 4 additional acres of outdoor growing space.  Four Star operations continue to expand.  The bulk of unrooted cuttings are shipped to Four Star from Central American cutting stations.  Off-site production space is leased from five companies with a total of 350,000 square feet (roughly 8 acres) that produces about 50% of the total liners.  Four Star ships plant material to over 4,600 customers in all 50 states with upwards of 17,000 shipments a year.

Not to be content with the status quo for long, Four Star and the Proven Winners® organization have developed relationships with manufacturers of products such as potting soil, fertilizer, and a container drip watering system called Waterwise® to add a hard goods line under the Proven Winners® name.  A garden center certification program and one of the largest collections of point-of-purchase materials have been developed to help retailers be more successful selling and marketing the Proven Winners line.  The Four Star display garden opened in 2004 to showcase our “living catalog” of both current and new varieties in action.  The gardens are open to both the public and industry professionals during the summer months.