Like so many great inventions, this one was born of frustration. “I came from a part of the world where one is surrounded by lush plants year round and my mother was a commercial gardener and florist.” says Phillip Fourie, who grew up in Zambia and South Africa. “But when I moved to Canada, I found myself spending a fortune on plants that simply didn’t make it through the winter, or sometimes even the summer.” Phillip’s experience in both the publishing and paint industries, where color swatches are routinely used to select ink and paint colors, gave him the idea of adapting the paint and paper color swatch concept to the horticultural world.

To ensure that the information in PlantSwatch™ would be scientifically sound, Fourie teamed up with Steven Loewen, a professor at the University of Guelph, Ridgetown Campus, who teaches Horticulture Diploma courses. Loewen agreed to co-author PlantSwatch™ and his remarkable ability to identify and isolate the most important growing factors for each plant was key to PlantSwatch™’s successful development. Loewen also saw an opportunity to produce a guide with the kind of attention to detail that he felt was lacking in existing plant guides. For example, the introductory section of PlantSwatch™ actually defines what is meant by sun, bright shade, semi-shade and shade. When choosing plants to include in PlantSwatch™, the co-authors tried to select ‘classic’ garden plants – those that have withstood the test of time and tend to be reasonably easy to grow over a wide range of conditions. They included a number of favorite award-winning plants as well as some that are new and ‘promising’. Finally they ensured a wide array of colors to give gardeners lots of choice.