Jim Darden
Hortsources.com is the brainchild of Mr. Jim Darden. After six years of high school teaching in Durham, and 25 years as Chairman of the Horticulture Technology Department at Sampson Community College in Clinton, N.C., Jim retired in 2004 and took over the full time reins of Darden’s Nursery and Landscaping, primarily a wholesale azalea producer selling in eastern North Carolina and the Mid-Atlantic states. Jim has published The Greenhouse Book, a guide for building hobby greenhouses, in 1978; Great American Azaleas in 1985, and Guests of the Emperor, a biography of his Dad’s World War II experiences, in 1990. Great American Camellias is awaiting publication.
A few months after retiring from teaching, Jim was tapped to become Head Horticulturist at his undergraduate Alma matter, Methodist University in Fayetteville. Jim graduated Cum laude from MU with a degree in biology, while being President of his senior class, and was a four-time All Conference basketball player, still holding several scoring and rebounding records at the school. He also holds a M. Ed. Degree in Science Education, with emphasis in Botany, from Duke University in Durham, N.C.
It was at Methodist in 2007 that Jim and his crew of seven were asked to landscape two new buildings with over 1500 native plants. After collecting plants for over six weeks, digging extensively in pocosins in eastern North Carolina, exhausting all currently available plant search resources, and driving to nurseries from Edenton (near Norfolk at the coast) to Burnsville (in the N. C. mountains) that Jim realized the inadequacies of our industry’s horticultural plant and material search resources. Having learned plant taxonomy at both MU and Duke, and having taught both ornamental plant I.D. and native plant I.D. at the college level for 25 years, Jim decided to couple his talents and experience with the most modern electronic resources to provide the industry with the best plant and horticultural materials locating service available.
The timing of these circumstances in the summer of 2007 was uncanny. Jim was fresh from teaching plant taxonomy, and was still involved in plant and materials locating in his nursery and landscape business. The Internet had become mature enough that many nurserymen and horticulturists were using it regularly, and young horticulturists entering the profession were ALL taking full advantage of electronic resources. There clearly was a need, particularly in the Mid-Atlantic region, to couple together horticultural and taxonomic experience with 21st century technology. Jim took on the challenge and Hortsources.com, after a year of planning, was launched late in 2008.
The goal of Hortsources.com is to become the most comprehensive horticultural information site in existence. Not only will horticultural professionals be able to enjoy free “Google-type” searches to find plants and all types of non-plant materials (soils, mulches, greenhouses, containers, etc.), but there will also be linkage to thousands of Internet sites with cultural information, plant images, professional services, job postings, calendars of events, local and state and national trade associations, and much, much more. Plant searchers (garden centers, landscapers, etc.) will also be able to create cumulative reports with the materials they find, print them out, and even arrange them in three-bid format if they wish. In addition, our GPS technology will even tell a searcher how far each nursery (and plant) is from their zip code location, greatly reducing the expensive mileage required for plant and materials procurement. In this day of high fuel prices, great competition and soaring advertising prices in our industry, Hortsources.com endeavors to bring technology to the rescue.
Nurseries and companies who list their plants and materials in our database will find that our modern technology allows us to offer online advertising at about ¼ the going industry rates. People from all over the country and the world can find your plants or materials. You can tell your best customers where to quickly view your offerings before placing their orders. In addition, searchers will be able to go directly to your entire inventory or website, allowing them to find as many of their needs as possible from one source—YOU! Special emphasis will be placed upon helping Mid-Atlantic searchers find well-priced plants in the Carolinas, and helping nurserymen find their starter plants down South and nationwide at the lowest prices. Once again, Hortsources.com is about helping Horticultural businesses succeed.
We invite you to search freely in Hortsources for the plants and materials you need, and list your materials in our database for reasonably priced national exposure and increased sales.