Pierre Bennerup Grows the Business His Father Began

Sunny Border Nurseries, Inc., was founded in 1931 by Robert Bennerup, father of current owner, Pierre Bennerup. In 1946, the nursery moved to its present location and changed its name to Sunny Border from Norwalk Perennial Gardens. During the first 25 years at the Kensington location, the nursery was primarily inolved in the wholesale production of bare root perennials. Some small conifers and woody ornamentals were also grown and sold through a retail outlet.

After Robert Bennerup's untimely death in 1967, his widow, Claudia Bennerup, sold the business to her son, Pierre. He subsequently sold off the woody material, closed the retail outlet and converted all bare root operations to container grown perennials.

Sunny Border Today
Sunny Border has introduced many new plant varieties into the trade over the past 60 years. The best known is Veronica "Sunny Border Blue," which was hybridized by Robert Bennerup in the 1940's. Grown throughout the temperate world, it is the finest form and longest blooming of all Veronicas. In 1993, it was selected as the "Perennial Plant of the Year" by the Perennial Plant Association.

The market for our plants is the Northeast corridor, from Virginia to Maine, west to Ohio, and a small amount of business to the south and west.

Propagation continues 12 months of the year. We use five primary methods of production, 75% vegatatively: tip or basal cuttings, division, root cuttings, tissue culture and seeds.

Peak propagation is from early April to the end of June, although fall/winter propagation is also common.

Recent Growth
We recently finished construction of an 11,000 sq. ft. propagation house. This custom facility was engineered by Dr. John Bartok of the University of CT, and purchased from GroWell Greenhouses of Cheshire, Connecticut. This house joins another 30,000 sq. ft. of houses already used in propagation.

Sunny Border continues its proud growing tradition with its line of Sunny Border Gold plants, grown in the gold pots.