Allan P. McConnell- a very common hosta that was registered by Mildred Seaver over thirty years ago. You can get it at nearly every garden center.

In this case, Centerton Nursery gave it a new name, "Irish Diamonds", as a sales gimmick. Centerton apparently has a practice of doing this. They recently sold Tokudama Flavocircinalis under a new name, "Happy Hippo". IMO, I think this is simply a marketing trick that just causes unnecessary confusion.

In the case of Irish Diamonds, they've even misspelled the cultivar name- the correct spelling is Allan P. McConnell, not Allen P. McConnell.

Another issue is that they are putting "TM" after the new name without registering the trademark with the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Centerton Nursery / Blew Label Perennials

"Blew Label" indeed.

Wow how can they do that. They make it look like a APM cross
the way they have it written Hosta X Allan P. McConnell.

I looked up the nursery in question, went to their 'Contact Us' page and entered the following:

"It has now been twice that several of us in the Hosta community have seen you market existing Hostas with already registered names under new names by you. The first was Tokudama Flavocircinalis under a new name, "Happy Hippo". Now we see you seem to be selling 'Allen P. McConnell (and, BTW, you mis-smelled Allen, should be Allan) as 'Irish Diamonds'.

I believe you are alienating most of us hostaholics, and will find your current business practice harmful to you in the long run.

Your 'off' Hosta naming malpractices are already being discussed on internet Hosta forums.

Please stop confusing an already complex world of Hosta naming.

Sincerely,

a hostaholic

P.S. - I will be pointing this problem out to the American Hosta Society."

When I pressed the 'Submit' button, their website returned this:

"Server Error in '/' Application.
Runtime Error
Description: An application error occurred on the server. The current custom error settings for this application prevent the details of the application error from being viewed remotely (for security reasons). It could, however, be viewed by browsers running on the local server machine.

Details: To enable the details of this specific error message to be viewable on remote machines, please create a tag within a "web.config" configuration file located in the root directory of the current web application. This tag should then have its "mode" attribute set to "Off".

Notes: The current error page you are seeing can be replaced by a custom error page by modifying the "defaultRedirect" attribute of the application's configuration tag to point to a custom error page URL.

Oh, well, I tried. Perhaps one day next week, during business hours, I'll try to call, though I usually find that 'putting it in writing' is more effective.

Also, the more folk contact them, of course, the better ;-)

fwiw,

hh

Personally, we consider what they are doing to be dishonest.

If they are willing to create a misleading name for an established and registered hosta to get un-observant buyers to purchase from them, how else might they be mis-representing their professional service. Would you believe them if they said that all of their hostas were tested for HVX? It could be claimed with no more than a cursery glance and saying "nope, no HVX here!" -or - "Looks like HVX, but we did test it! OH WELL!". There would be no lie, but the practice would be just as misleading and highly unethical.

We have just placed their name on our "DON'T EVEN LOOK AT THEIR HOSTAS" list.

We all know that new hostas command higher prices. This is not only the "supply & demand" thing but is needed to defray the cost of developing and propagating enough hostas to market. They know this.

It also means many potential buyers would buy one if it seemed to be a new hosta being sold for a low price. That creates an uneven playing field for honest growers like Chris. They know this also. But they want to eat forbidden fruit without putting in the work, by creating a new name tag, not a new hosta. That is deceitful!

NO TO BLUE LABEL PERENNIALS

We hope some copies of our expressing our disgust over their business practices goes across the owners desk.

Les & Theresa

Try this address: amy@centertonnursery.com

Steve

Another technique, or maybe tactic, is to make several threads of it. Not simply posts to the single thread. And be sure to enter the name of the website and the company name, and the possible geographical location of the nursery.

The strategy is, the web bots cruise and create an entry for each thread, indicating subject and number of responses. If someone is looking up this nursery by site or by location, there will appear in their search results MORE HITS indicating nefarious business practices. Then too, has anyone checked Garden Watchdog? I'm reluctant to mention the host of this service, because in the past GWeb told me they'd cut my membership if I mentioned "that place" ever again. It floored me, but has kept my remarks away from that wound in GWeb's side.

HH, I'm getting the errors as well, when I simply try to click on find a dealer etc. If you click on HOME, you get a lot of cards/photos of different garden plants. I found a link which worked, about the history of the Blew family and Centerton Nursery. It is below. Possibly the family owning this nursery, located in New Jersey,has a manager for hosta sales with dubious ethics or lack of gardening morality. Whether they are aware of it or not is a consideration...and might give them a whipping boy to distance themselves from the practice.

Here is a link that might be useful: History of the Blew Family & Centerton Nursery

I personally called Centerton a few weeks ago and they confirmed they were giving some older hostas new trademark names. (I believe they are doing so simply to wholesale old hostas as new varieties, but that is just my opinion.) I'm not sure how many hostas they have assigned trademark names to, but the names are not currently registered with the USPTO. I searched the USPTO website and could not find any trademark name registered as HAPPY HIPPO or IRISH DIAMONDS, but it is possible the nursery has applied to the USPTO for registration and the process is not yet complete. (By the way, I don't believe it is required by law that a trademark name be registered with the USPTO.)

I'm not sure that Centerton is doing anything unlawful...but is perhaps unethical...and it definately causes confusion!

A similar situation may be the case in which Q and Z Nursery recently assigned rectifolia 'Ginbuchi Tachi' a trademark name- SILVER STAR... as a sales gimmick? Perhaps it is justifiable in this case, however, since there was some confusion with the original name, 'Ginbuchi Tachi'. According to Zilis, the hosta registered with the AHS as 'Ginbuchi Tachi' is not the same plant as SILVER STAR (see The Hostapedia, page 338-339). However, I would have preferred that Q and Z would have used "SILVER STAR" as a cultivar name and then register it first with the AHS...in which case it would be written just like any other cultivar name as hosta 'Silver Star'...and there would be a description of that plant on record with the Hosta Registry...and it would be clear on the AHS registration that Q and Z was not the originator, but that it came from Japan...where it still goes by the name 'Ginbuchi Tachi'...

Here is a listing of trademarked and trade names which may be helpful: Trademarked Hostas

Nobody ever says it,but I think there are a lot of hostas out there that are the same plant with different names. I still think Minuteman and Patriot are the same plant,and two that I have that are identical are Cliffords Polar Moon and Paradigm. If you put my two together,you couldn't tell them apart. Phil

Up until this fall I was glad a had placed a painted rock under my H. 'Paul's Glory' and H. 'Old Glory' or I wouldn't have been able to remember which was which. They are neighbors in my garden. But this fall, now that they are mature the PG is soooo much more golden than the OG.

I only relating to this because it shows how similar some of the very popular hostas can be. I really don't appreciate the hundreds of hostas being muddled up by careless, almost irresponsible marketing ploys to sell something as new what is not new.

Don is right on. It probably is not illegal what Blew Label (I inadvertantly used "Blue" in my previous post with no intention to mislead anyone) is doing. Ethics is a state of mind, reflecting on the sincerity of truth one feels, and we feel it is unethical.

Theresa has strong feelings that what they are doing is lieing to us buyers in order to get an edge over honest competition for our consumer dollars.

Les & Theresa

I've never seen a Blew Label Perennials plant label on anything around here. They must not sell to our part of the country.

Deanna

I clicked on the link Don provided, read the faq's, and Walters Gardens is one of Centerton's franchises.

Deanna

I'm not sure what you mean by "franchise" Deanna. Walters is a wholesaler who does their own TC. It's likely that they sell TC plants to Blew Label (i.e. Alan P. McConnell), but the relabeling and misleading marketing is done by Blew Label. What nurseries do with their plants after Walters sells them is up to that nursery. Walters or any other TC supplier has no control over that.

Steve

Nothing wrong with labels when they show the correct name. I checked and have 9 'Blew Labels', which showed correct names and seemed to show off the plant well for sale. The problem is when they rename plants. Bernd

I returned to the FAQ pages that Deanna got her information from, and read that about Walters and other places and the word "franchise" was used there. I was planning to ask what it meant, because I was puzzled by it too. Thanks for the explanation, Steve.

Okay, so what does the word franchise mean in the context of the FAQ's?

Deanna

Have no idea what they are saying there. If it is merely a contract for services rendered via that list of businesses, who knows who is franchisee and franchiser....or whatever...hard to tell which end of the dog is doing the wagging here. :)

bump for s&g

Bragu, what/who is s&g?

S&G is a friend of Dave.

Steve

*poohs* and giggles

Thanks for the bump.

I hadn't come across this thread yet, but had been wondering if incidents like this had been occurring.