Harkness Roses, breeders and growers of exquisite British Roses for more than 140 years, and leading online retailer of garden plants, YouGarden, are delighted to announce an exclusive new partnership to develop online rose sales in the UK.
From mid-May, YouGarden will take over the operation of the Harkness Roses consumer website www.roses.co.uk, as well as the related gifting website of World of Roses, www.worldofroses.com.
The new partnership will launch just in time for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show from 24th-28th May, where Harkness will be exhibiting in the Great Pavilion with high hopes of winning another Gold Medal for their display. The company has also announced today that renowned TV Gardener, David Domoney, will become the Brand Ambassador for Harkness Roses in the UK.
The Harkness Rose Company will continue to breed and select exciting new rose varieties for the UK market from its Bedfordshire Nursery, and the companies will contract produce their roses together. Harkness Roses will be exclusively available online only via these two websites and YouGarden’s wider ecommerce and mail order activities.
Commenting on the deal, Harkness’ David White said “We are delighted to have reached this deal with Peter and the YouGarden Team as we have worked with them for many years. Since 2020, my team have grown the online business ten-fold, but I believe that YouGarden’s expertise and fulfilment ability will allow us to focus on our core operation which comprises; developing new rose varieties, growing the Harkness brand around the world and maximising sales of premium Harkness Masterpiece roses to UK garden centre retailers.”
YouGarden’s Peter McDermott added “Harkness Roses have been a long-established name in the rose breeding world for many years, having introduced some of the best varieties currently available for the modern garden. There is a clear thirst for high quality British roses, and we are really excited to be the exclusive online retailer of Harkness Roses in the UK now, with exciting plans to grow the brand and the gifting business”.
