Leading Horticulturist Says Replace National Flower

DOYLESTOWN, PA, Jun 30 (MARKET WIRE) --
As we approach the July 4th Independence Day Holiday, one of the nation's
best known horticulturists recommends replacing the rose as America's
national flower with the sunflower. The reasons, according to George
Ball, chairman, W. Atlee Burpee & Co., the nation's leading home
gardening company, based here in Bucks County, are obvious, and for
patriotic reasons the sunflower should be elevated to America's top
flower.

The rose was named number one flower in the 1980s, by President Reagan, as
the result of efforts by a "huge lobby which has since disappeared into
the Colombian Jungle" states Mr. Ball, in a blog posted earlier this month
(June 15), titled, The Rose Blows, on www.heronswoodvoice.com. In addition
to being a leader in the home gardening industry, Mr. Ball is past
president of The American Horticultural Society in Washington, D.C.

"The rose is an unworthy national symbol," Mr. Ball says. "Strictly on
patriotic grounds, the U.S. should have nothing to do with the rose as
its national symbol," he states. Roses are "all foreign from breeding to
production to wholesale distribution," Mr. Ball explains, and "the lion's
share of their profits go abroad."

Mr. Ball says we should go native, and his choice is the Sunflower. "Now
is the time for the sunflower to step up and kick some serious rose
butt," he concludes in his blog. Originating in eastern Colorado, the
sunflower has been an enormous blessing to the world economy, he adds,
"rivaling the rose in importance abroad."

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For more information or to arrange an interview with George Ball, please
contact:

Kristin Grilli
724-263-0363
kgrilli@burpee.com

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