OUR NURSERIES WERE ESTABLISHED IN 1857 
3 
A group of Great Plains Horticulturists, including the Professors of 
Horticulture from Agricultural Colleges of the Middle West and 
Canada, in a field of our Giant Everbearing Strawberries oru> 
August 12th. 
measured up to 6 ] .4 inches around and of most excellent" 
quality. A few years later we started experiments in 
breeding and originating new varieties of strawberries,, 
working especially to prolong the season of fruiting. We: 
made thousands of crosses between the earlier varieties: 
of Everbearing Strawberries and even imported plants 
from France and Mexico for this purpose. One year we 
grew 80,000 Hybrid Seedlings, every plant different with 
no two exactly alike. In this lot we found some valuable 
new varieties and among them was our No. 999 Giant.. 
After working with the Everbearing varieties of straw¬ 
berries for a number of years, we decided to see what 
would come from crosses made between the Number 999 
Giant Everbearing and the big Premier once-a-year fruit¬ 
er, and Dame Nature surely rewarded our efforts for a- 
mong the seedlings resulting from this experiment were 
the outstanding new strawberries, Red Gold and Blizzard; 
King. 
We have always made a specialty of growing hard)'' 
Perennial Flowering Plants and during the past few years 
we have greatly increased this department of our busi¬ 
ness, adding many new and rare varieties not usually 
found in this country. At present time we have over 
eight miles of beds of Hardy Perennial and Rock Gar¬ 
den plants. We were one of the first nurseries in this 
country to grow the Oriental Poppy and many thousands 
of Flower Gardens glow in season, with great loads of 
the beautiful flaming red poppies, grown on plants ship¬ 
ped from the Gardner Nurseries. 
Our desire has been to grow great quantities of the 
best Hardy Perennial and Rock Garden plants, so that 
we can offer, fresh young vigorous plants, to our friends; 
at prices that will show them a big saving, and so help 
to make our slogan "More Fruits and Flowers for 
Every Home” a reality. 
If you chance to be passing near Osage, we extend a. 
cordial invitation to call and go through our Nurseries. 
Cordially Yours, 
Clark E. Gardner, Pres. 
