The company’s flagship NetPS Plant Finder launches its annual expansion
(Kenora, ON) — For 17 years, Northscaping has been committed to expanding the NetPS Plant Database, which powers the NetPS Plant Finder Tool, on an annual basis. This year marks a significant milestone for the largest commercial online plant database in the world, with the impressive addition of 2,325 new plant varieties, bringing the total in the database to over 35,000 plants.
Among the plants added in this most recent expansion are over 450 new houseplant varieties, including the entire Leaf Joy lineup from Proven Winners, new tropical varieties, a continued focus on warm-zone plants, a range of new native plants, hundreds of perennials, over 300 new annuals, more than 200 edibles, 100 new water garden plants, and much more.
“We are committed to keeping this database one of the most valuable tools in a garden center’s toolbelt,” explained James Kohut, president of Northscaping and developer of NetPS. “Annual expansions allow us to keep it up-to-date with new varieties and sought-after plants and make it easier for sellers to update their online stores and plant information resources.”
The plug-and-play NetPS Plant Finder Tool is used by over 250 nurseries and garden centers across North America as their primary plant database. With the tool, sellers can maintain accurate and up-to-date information on their websites about the plants they offer, and with the NetPS Plus service they can manage the plant information and photographs in their online stores.
“Alsip Home & Nursery has been a client of the NetPS Plant Finder since 2009 and it has consistently been one of the best features on our website for SEO. We love that it gives our customers a way to browse our plants before shopping in store. So when we started ShipMyPlants.com it was a no-brainer to integrate NetPS into our platform,” explains Rich Christakes, founder of Ship My Plants and owner of Alsip Home & Nursery. “NetPS provides plant data for over 41,000 plants, which has really helped our sellers to quickly and accurately add plants to their stores.”
“As new plant varieties are introduced into the market, gardeners will begin their hunt online to find them,” says Kohut. “This expansion allows plant retailers to quickly select the new plants they offer, and the rest is done for them. Our team uploads high-quality photos and accurate information and automatically updates the plant finder tools on their websites to show these new varieties.”
Garden Media Group’s 2024 Garden Trends Report, first released in July 2023, predicted that 2024 would be about dark foliage and moody plants, which we have seen to hold true thus far. Of the complete list, here are ten new plants that follow the trend:
1. Atropurpureum Black-Leaved Clover (Trifolium repens ‘Atropurpureum‘)
2. Black Amber Molasses Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor ‘Black Amber Molasses’)
3. Black Diamond Precious Pink Crapemyrtle (Lagerstroemia indica ‘LDC-11’)
4. Black Magic Hawaiian Ti Plant (Cordyline fruticosa ‘Black Magic’)
5. Black Pearl Redbud (Cercis canadensis ‘JN16’)
6. Black Velvet Begonia (Begonia ‘Black Velvet’)
7. Headliner Dark Violet Picotee Petunia (Petunia ‘KLEPH19120’)
8. LaDiva Big Night Lavender (Lavandula ‘LaDiva Big Night’)
9. Magic Fountains Dark Blue White Bee Larkspur (Delphinium ‘Magic Fountains Dark Blue White Bee’)
10. Minifamous Neo Dark Blue Calibrachoa (Calibrachoa ‘KLECA17399’)
“Since its creation in 2001, our goal has been to make the NetPS Plant Database the largest commercial plant database in the world, period. With more than 200,000 plant varieties sold in commerce, that is a tall order, but it sets us on a mission to expand the database indefinitely,” explains Kohut. “With thousands of new plant varieties released each year by the developers and plant marketers, and with consumer plant priorities that evolve over time, it’s more than just a motivation for us; it’s a necessity for our clients. It’s why we maintain two teams of plant photographers plus freelancers and a fully-staffed horticultural department that’s constantly adding new plants to the database year-round. What you see in this release is the result of their efforts.”
The NetPS Plant Finder Tool provides branded searchable plant information for your customers’ pre-shopping and after-sales care needs. Over 250 North America-based independent retail garden centers are using the Plant Finder Tool for their businesses to maintain and manage their online plant information resource with just the click of a button. The Plant Finder Tool is the #1 online plant database for nurseries and garden centers.
