Image 1 of 12

1800 - Dingee & Conard Co. of West Grove, PA grows and distributes fruit trees to Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey farmers.

Dingee & Conard

1800 — Dingee & Conard Co. of West Grove, PA, grows and distributes fruit trees to Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey farmers.

1870 — Dingee & Conard Co. expands from a fruit tree distributor to a mail order company for flowering plants.

1880 — Dingee & Conard publishes and distributes first gardening catalog with “roses by mail a specialty.”

Conard & Jones

June 3, 1897 — Alfred Conard, S. Morris Jones and Antoine Wintzer incorporated Conard & Jones Company as a mail order firm selling roses, plants and seeds.

1906 — Following Alfred Conard’s death, Robert Pyle, originally hired as a helper in 1898, and his father purchase a large part of Conard’s share of the business.

1908 — Believing the company would thrive if it specialized; Pyle selects roses as the most promising market opportunity. 

1908 — Pyle adopts and trademarks the word “Star,” creating Star® Roses as the first horticultural trademark.

Conard-Pyle

1911 — Pyle sails to Europe in search of new roses, marking the beginning of long-held relationships between The Conard-Pyle Company and many of Europe’s most noted hybridizers. 

1911 — Jones retires and sells his interest to Pyle.

1925 — Name changes to The Conard-Pyle Company, and Star® Roses assumes prominence with the public.

1930 — The Plant Patent Act became law. The Conard-Pyle Company was the first to patent new roses.

1930 — The Conard-Pyle Company is first to license other nurseries to grow and sell Star® Roses.

1933 — The Conard-Pyle Company becomes first to introduce miniature roses in the U.S.

1938 — Pyle and other industry leaders establish All American Rose Selections, Inc. (AARS). 

1939 — Francis Meilland dispatches a parcel to The Conard-Pyle Company aboard one of the last aircraft to leave France before it crumbles under the Nazi blitzkrieg. The parcel contains a vigorous new rose variety that produces enormous gold and ivory blooms. It has incredibly successful trials in all areas of the U.S.

1945 — Pyle suggests “this greatest new rose of our time should be named for the world's greatest desire: Peace.”  The name is adopted the day Berlin falls to the Allied Forces and the Peace rose greets delegates to first United Nations meeting in San Francisco. AARS names Peace its only 1946 award-winner the day Japan surrenders.

1951 — Sidney B. Hutton, after 20 years with The Conard-Pyle Company, becomes president of the company following Pyle’s death. Hutton is succeeded by his sons, Sidney B. (Beany) Hutton, Jr., in 1964, and R. J. (Dick) Hutton in 1974.

1963 — The Conard-Pyle Company ceases its field-grown nursery operation and becomes one of the first container production nurseries in the northern U.S.

1970 — The Conard-Pyle Company introduces the Meserve Hollies, generally considered the best group of ornamental plant introductions of the decade — and perhaps the century.

1972 — The Conard-Pyle Company introduces Portrait ‘Meypink’ the first AARS award-winner created by an amateur.

1978 — Recognizing changing times and opportunities, The Conard-Pyle Company eliminate sits retail stores and mail order business to give full attention to production and wholesale sales.

1986 — The Conard-Pyle Company leadership passes to the third generation of the Hutton family as Steven B. Hutton becomes president and Dick Hutton becomes chairman of the board.

1987 — Bonica ‘Meidomonac’ becomes the first landscape shrub rose to win an AARS award.

1988 — Meidiland® Roses are introduced to the North American market. Also this year, The Conard-Pyle Company establishes rose production in California and container nursery production in Maryland.

1989 — Debut™ ‘Meibarke’ becomes the first miniature rose to win an AARS award.  

1992 — The then-unnamed Knock Out® Rose is sent to Conard-Pyle by rose breeder Bill Radler.

1993 — The Conard-Pyle Company enters biogenetics with a joint venture working with test tube plants.

2000 — The Knock Out® Rose ‘Radrazz’ is introduced and is an AARS winner.

2007 — Red Drift®, Peach Drift®, Pink Drift® and Coral Drift® roses are introduced.

2008 — The Conard-Pyle Company opens new corporate headquarters and state-of-the-art greenhouses for research and development in West Grove, PA.

2010 — The Knock Out® Family of Roses launches new branded look.