Kind Earth Head Grower Joseph LaMent and John Mark Courtney represent the company at several industry events. Photo: Lindsey Joy Photography
When John Mark Courtney founded Kind Earth Growers in Ottsville, PA, in early 2017, it was as much the beginning of a passion project as it was the launch of a new business. During his time as a grower at an aquatics plant company (Aquascapes Unlimited), Courtney was increasingly aware of the potential of native plants. When the opportunity came to purchase the native assets of that company, he had to take it.
Over the next two years, Courtney split his time between the two companies. By 2019, Kind Earth Growers had grown from a side project into a fully functioning business, giving Courtney the chance to make a full transition. Today, the operation offers more than 215 species of seed-grown native perennials and aquatic plants under 20,000 square feet of controlled-environment production and about 9,000 square feet of outdoor growing space.
This relatively short but successful journey has allowed Courtney to pursue his passion while building a profitable growing operation.
Managing Growing Pains
Kind Earth Growers essentially has two customer bases: re-wholesalers who upsize plants for retail sales and independent garden centers, and small- and large-scale landscape contractors.
“In the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, there’s been a movement for ecologically based landscape design in residential communities, and that interest has directly affected the demand for native plants,” Courtney says.
Kind Earth also works with suppliers involved in public works projects, state parks, green spaces, and public gardens.
This customer diversity not only made it easier for the Kind Earth Growers to navigate through the typical growing pains a new business might experience, it also helped them avoid some of the ebbs and flows that much of the horticulture industry experienced coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We’ve seen anywhere from 10% to 25% growth each year since 2020, and it’s been a consistent uptick without the leveling off that others have seen,” Courtney says. “I attribute that to us being a new company that more people are finding, as well as the quality of our plants.”
Courtney says the flexibility of his team is also a big factor. As owner, he is also involved in day-to-day production and planning. The rest of the management team is small, which Courtney says is important.
“Most of us here can do each other’s jobs and cover for each other when necessary,” Courtney says. This includes Head Grower Joseph LaMent, Greenhouse Manager Diane LaRosa, and Erin Range, who handles shipping and logistics.
“All of us can jump on the production line, pack boxes, and pull orders if we are needed,” he says.
Why Native Plants?
While earning a degree in ornamental horticulture and environmental design at Delaware Valley University, Courtney says he was drawn to ecological design and the role that native plants could play above all else.
“When I graduated in 1998, native plants were more of a niche market,” he says. “I look at native plants as the backbone of ecological resilience. You can garden with plant communities that don’t emphasize just one or two plants but make them part of a broader whole.”
An internship at Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve, where he was surrounded by trilliums and other spring ephemerals, furthered his interest in native plant communities.
Kind Earth Growers currently grows an extensive pallet of native plants from the Piedmont region along with select prairie and coastal species.
“We like to add at least a couple new plants every year,” he says. “We’re constantly trying out new species and experimenting with germination protocols.”
“We follow garden design trends in public spaces,” Courtney adds, citing the progress made in areas such as New York’s High Line neighborhood and by people like Douglas Tallamy at the University of Delaware.
“Through his book, ‘Bringing Nature Home,’ Tallamy has raised awareness of native plants and how essential they are for wildlife and insects to the public mind,” Courtney says.
While native plants are regional by nature, many of the keystone native species have overlap in neighboring regions, Courtney says.
“It is also helpful to observe which plants work the hardest in difficult situations to help us gain an understanding of plant composition for tough sites.”
A Strategy for a Sustainable Future
Because Kind Earth Growers has such a diverse customer base, Courney says it’s important to understand the value proposition for each.
“Each customer brings a different set of wants and needs,” Courtney says. “When we are contract growing for re-wholesalers or large restoration projects, a strict production schedule is important.”
Working with contractors servicing municipal regula-tions for stormwater management is a bit different, he says.
“A lot of the time the engineered plan may be very different than the reality on the ground. We offer our extensive knowledge and experience to ensure the project is successful and the right plant goes in the right place.” Courtney says. “It’s important for us to go into fall planting season with plenty of speculative availability for these projects.”
While native plants have been and will be a passion for Courtney, his ultimate goal is still to grow a thriving and profitable business that can support the local community. “We are fortunate to have a tight team, but we’re also all accountable,” Courtney says. “We have a pretty strict budget we operate in that helps us grow in a smart way.”
Courtney says his experience of going through Dr. Charlie Hall’s Executive Academy for Growth and Leadership (EAGL) program at Texas A&M University has been especially valuable.
“It is exciting to be sitting in a class with businesses of all sizes and specialties. Each person has something very different to bring to the table, and there is a lot to learn from each perspective.”
When it comes to approaching and investing in new technology, Courtney says the conversation starts with how it will make his team more efficient and free them up from mundane tasks.
“Everything we decide to do from a technology standpoint, whether it’s a new soil batch mixer or root zone bottom heating, is based on saving labor — not replacing human labor, but making everyone’s job more enjoyable,” he says.
It may have helped that the facility Courtney used to start Kind Earth Growers was previously used for orchid production. Rather than getting overwhelmed by all of the systems and designs that would need to be changed, Courtney chose the long-term approach.
“If we had tried to make all the necessary changes at one time, we would have gotten bogged down, and probably would have never made it past the first hurdle,” he says.
What’s Next
This past February, Kind Earth Growers increased its production space by 75% with the addition of two more greenhouses.
“As we move forward, another increase may be in the works, although that wouldn’t be for another couple of years, and would depend on market stability,” Courtney says.
Courtney admits he grapples with whether to expand on the property for the sake of growing or stay true to his focus on developing habitats ideal for native plants. Above all else, he wants to help the native plant niche grow its market share.
“If we work together as an industry, we can help educate folks who are unfamiliar with our plants and do so in a way that we control the message without diluting it,” he says. “Any national native plant infrastructure will have to be regional and will take regional growers all over the country coming together to grow the demand.”
Learning From Other Growers
As the demand for native plants grows, Kind Earth Growers owner John Mark Courtney says the industry will only keep up if it continues to raise the bar. This means supporting other growers.
“We are always striving to grow our best, and when we have successes that other native plant growers may struggle with, we share what we’ve learned,” Courtney says. “There’s not enough of us growers out there making these plants available, so the more we can help each other get plants out into the market, the more demand we can meet.”
