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You are here: Home / Business / Bestselling Plants / Growing, Selling and Propagating non Patented Heuchera, also known as Coral Bells.

Growing, Selling and Propagating non Patented Heuchera, also known as Coral Bells.

Updated : June 17, 2024

19 Comments

Dollar for dollar Coral Bells, also known as Heuchera is by far one of the best plants you can put in your landscape because they are easy to care for and add year round color to the landscape.  And they can be pricey, I’ve seen one gallons priced as high as $14.00 in a big box store!

Huge Opportunity for You!

In our Members Area People are always looking to buy Heuchera, Coral Bells an there are never enough for sale.  We need people like you to step up and help fill that demand.  For the past two or three years I’ve been buying 1,000 Coral Bells a year from one of our members at $1.70 each!  That’s a $1,700 order from him!

Growing them is actually pretty easy but there’s one itty bitty problem with that idea.  Most of them are patented!  At least that goes for the ones that you see in the retail stores.

Patented?  What in the world does that mean?

Follow along closely, what I am about to tell you is really, really important.

Patented means that a grower somewhere spent a great deal of time effort and even money cross pollinating certain varieties in a controlled environment and developed a new variety.  Some times new varieties are just chance seedlings and one out of 5,000 or more seedlings produced has desirable characteristics that neither of the parent plants had.  Other times the effort to create a new variety is much more deliberate.

In either case, if the grower thinks that they have something truly unique they start propagating their new strain via means of asexual reproduction, cuttings, division or tissue culture, and they have to study the new strain for some time, usually two years or more, to make certain that their new introduction is stable.

By stable I mean that all of the off spring from the new variety show the exact same desirable characteristics as the original.  If in fact the new variety is stable, the grower can then apply for a plant patent.  If the plant patented is granted, a Plant Patent Number is assigned to the new introduction and that means that nobody can legally propagate that new variety without first entering into a legal agreement with the patented holder.

These legal agreements, known as licenses, are difficult to get and expensive to get.  Small growers like us are likely to not be issued such a license and therefore, we cannot propagate patented plants.  And even if we could, we would have to pay the patent holder a royalty on each and every plant that we grew and sold.  It’s complicated and it sorta creates a disadvantage to small growers like us.

But not really.  Follow along.

There are many plants, including many Heuchera, that are not patented.  They are in the public domain and you and I are free to propagate them, grow them and sell them to our hearts content.  That’s a good thing!  They can be a little bit difficult to find because the garden centers are packed full of patented plants.  But they are out there and you can find them!

I’m going to tell you a story about me, one of our members and one particular Coral Bells.

Many years ago I picked up a few Coral Bells to put in my home landscape.  One of those was Coral Bells ‘Snow Angel’, one of the prettiest coral bells that you can find.  Pretty pink flowers, green and white variegated leaves, just flat out beautiful.  And Snow Angel is not patented.

So a few years back I dug up the Snow Angel in my landscape, divided them into many new plants, put a few back in my landscape and I potted and sold all of the divisions in my nursery.  One of our members from here in Ohio came to visit me at the nursery  and bought the last two Snow Angel that I had in the nursery.

Selling my last two plants was dumb!  It’s like selling the Goose that Lays the Golden Eggs!

Months later I realized that I had no Snow Angel to sell and non to propagate from.  So I did what I always do when I’m looking for a particular plant, I went to The Members Area and I asked if anybody had any Snow Angel Coral Bells liners that they would like to sell.  (A liner is a small plant, a bit bigger than a rooted cutting, but still pretty small.)

The very same member that bought my last two Snow Angel Coral Bells spoke up and said she had 80 left that she could sell me.  She bought two plants from me and turned those two plants into hundreds of plants!  She bought my last two plants and later turned around and sold me 80 of the off spring from two plants that used to belong to me.

Learning from my own mistake of selling off my last two Snow Angel, instead of potting the 80 plants that I bought from Tammy I planted them in a bed so I could use them from propagation.  This summer we dug up a few of those plants, tore them to pieces, put them Under the Automatic Plant Propagation System that we use and we now have hundreds rooted and ready to pot from just a few of the plants from my bed of stock plants.

A bed of Snow Angel Coral Bells for propagation.

A bed of Snow Angel Coral Bells for propagation.

These plants were tiny when I planted them in the fall and look at how much they filled out in just a matter of months.  I need to add other varieties of non patented Coral Bells to this bed so I can produce an unlimited supply of my own Coral Bells and quit spending $1,700 a year on liners.

This is How We Propagate Them.

Liar, Liar Pants on Fire!

There is no first video!  I seem to have lost it.  Urrrrrrrrg!  I know we shot the video, but I seem to have lost it.  That’s what I get for taking weeks and weeks to get this stuff posted.  I’ll have to shoot another video for you.

Heuchera, Coral Bells pieces and division in the propagation bed.

Heuchera, Coral Bells pieces and division in the propagation bed.

They look like the dickens don’t they?  Don’t let that concerned you.  They are perennials and they are well rooted  thanks to The Automated Plant Propagation System that we use.  Come spring they’ll be spectacular!

Coral Bells, Heuchera will all kinds of new roots.

Coral Bells, Heuchera will all kinds of new roots.

Freshly rooted Heuchera, Coral Bells.

Freshly rooted Heuchera, Coral Bells.

Snow Angel Coral Bells just before being sacrificed for propagation.

Snow Angel Coral Bells just before being sacrificed for propagation.

And this is where you come in.

We are always looking for folks who can grow and produce more and more non patented Coral Bells.  There are a number of non patented varieties that I am aware of, but I know there are more and more and more can be created by experimenting with seedlings.

If this interests you we can discuss it in further detail with the rest of Our Members Inside the Members Area.  There are a lot of things that we are working on in the members area and this is just one of them.  We are in process of identifying and compiling lists of non patented plants that we are all free to propagate.  Those lists are almost endless.

In my opinion, there are some growers with deep pockets who are working to make sure that garden centers only carry patented plants from which they earn a royalty on every plant sold.  In our members area I constantly remind our members that it is up to us to make sure all of these beautiful, non patented plants never go extinct.

That’s my mission in life.  Test Drive the Members Area Today, We’d Love to Have You in Our Family of Backyard Growers.

Questions, comments, mean things to say?  Post them below and I’ll respond appropriately.

P.S. A while back I wrote another article about Growing and Selling Coral Bells.  Check it out, you’ll see some amazing photos.

Take a gander at these posts...

  • The Golden Curls Weeping Willow
  • Lavender Twist Weeping Redbud Tree
  • Golden Curls Willow
  • Heuchera-Coral Bells
  • Java Red Weigela

Comments

  1. mike hana says

    January 11, 2024 at 2:08 pm

    i live in Canada and we have a hard winter for apple rooting i have never had success i put them as your advice and got green in late April but I never got root do you have advice for me

    Reply
    • Mike says

      January 12, 2024 at 8:11 am

      Mike,

      Apples are not going to be easy to root, most are budded onto a root stock grown from seed. You can try them as softwoods or even air layering.
      http://mikesbackyardnursery.com/2015/01/easy-summertime-plant-propagation-techniques-can-home/

      Reply
  2. Pat Romo says

    January 22, 2022 at 12:42 pm

    When you cut a mature coral bell straight down the middle to propagate, how deep do you plant the new cutting, especially if there are new 1-2″ sprouts up and down the 2-3″ of the non-cut side. Do you leave the 2-3″ of cut area exposed, just bury the cutting back to original depth or bury the entire cut area including the new sprouts?

    Reply
    • Mike says

      January 23, 2022 at 8:37 am

      Pat,

      Bury the cut part completely. Back to the original depth.

      Reply
  3. Dena Wilcox says

    April 19, 2021 at 11:15 pm

    Hello Mike, purchased a few coral bells. They came as roots. I live in AZ, planted them in pots the first of March. Still no sign of life. When should I expect them to emerge? My Hosta plants have been up for weeks. They get 2 hours of early morning sun and then shaded patio. They came to me after the big Feb storm and took 10 days to arrive. I’m afraid they may have froze. New to Coral Bells. Thanks Dena.

    Reply
    • Mike says

      April 20, 2021 at 8:02 am

      Dena,

      The problem might not be the 10 days of transit but the way they were stored before they were shipped. If the soil is at least 60 degrees they should up by now. Especially if your hostas are up. Many of my coral bells here in Ohio have new growth on them. It doesn’t sound good. Try contacting the seller. Of course they’ll tell you to wait at least another month.

      Reply
  4. Linda Kruisman says

    August 4, 2020 at 3:17 pm

    Dear Mike,
    You asked..If this interests you we can discuss it in further detail with the rest of Our Members Inside the Members Area. And I can tell you Yes! I am interested to start my own backyard ‘Heuchera’ nursery. Only thing is..I live in The Netherlands. Maybe you could send me a message, is it possible to join the community even when I live so far away. Any way I really want to thank you for all your time and effort you put in your videos and articles. Its is very helpful and motivating. Greetings, Linda

    Reply
    • Mike says

      August 5, 2020 at 8:34 am

      Linda,

      You can join our members area from anywhere in the world, but buying or selling plants with other members would not be possible. But you can ask questions and join the discussions and benefit greatly. http://backyardgrowers.com/join

      Reply
      • Linda says

        August 5, 2020 at 5:32 pm

        Thank you very much for your fast reply! I will keep an eye on the become a member page 😉 Greetings, Linda

        Reply
  5. Pam says

    November 18, 2018 at 11:27 am

    Hello Mike, I do not grow to sell. But I do grow for my own garden. I have one coral bell plant. I do love her. I would be interested in buying at least two of your snow angels. My location is Springfield, Missouri. Can this be arranged? Thank you for your time. Enjoyed the Japanese Maple video very much. That got me to the website & the coral bells.

    Reply
    • Mike says

      November 19, 2018 at 7:36 am

      Pam,

      Not at this time, maybe in the future.

      Reply
  6. Roy Houseman says

    October 26, 2018 at 7:07 pm

    Mike,
    We bought a foreclosed property 6 months ago and remodeled the inside and moved in. The house was built in 1978 and some azaleas were planted when the home was built. They were not well taken care of or trimmed but only a couple of times that i could tell. They were taller than the house and presented a problem as they totally blocked the front windows. I took a few cuttings and rooted them to plant along the fence. Now i cut them back to about 4′ tall and have enough to root hundreds. My question is, How can I know these particular plants arent protected against me propagating them and giving or selling them? They have been here 40 years.

    Reply
    • Mike says

      October 27, 2018 at 7:54 am

      Roy,

      Here’s the problem. If they were patented the patent has long since expired. But you don’t know the actual variety and there is no way to find out for sure what variety you have, way too many different kinds of azaleas. You must know the variety in order to grow and sell them legally. I stress this constantly in our members area, http://backyardgrowers.com/join, and our members get it and get started on the right path. I have rant about this that I share with them regularly.

      Are the cuttings that you have to stick “Rant Compliant”.

      Honestly, this is the most important thing I can teach new members.
      http://freeplants.com/rant.htm

      Reply
  7. Nancy says

    October 20, 2018 at 6:51 pm

    Hi Mike,
    Are you putting the coral bells in the mist system now at this time of year? If so, how long do you keep them there and how do you over winter them?

    Reply
    • Mike says

      October 20, 2018 at 7:47 pm

      Nancy,

      No, we did them earlier, several weeks back. August. They’ll stay in the sand all winter, uncovered. Should be fine.

      Reply
  8. Marshall Reagan says

    October 16, 2018 at 7:17 pm

    do I have to have a state issued plant license to propagate & sell plant liners?

    Reply
    • Mike says

      October 17, 2018 at 8:16 am

      Marshall,

      You do because it’s all about pest control. Other states do not want you or me shipping plants into their state that have not been inspected in their state of origin. It’s a really simple process, state inspectors have been nothing but helpful and friendly to me and all of our members report the same. The inspectors are really a source of valuable information. And they tend to like really small growers like all of us. http://backyardgrowers.com/join

      Reply
  9. Nancy Tomlinson says

    October 16, 2018 at 6:29 pm

    I have a pink polka dot plant that has gotten quite spindly. What should I do to make it denser?

    Reply
    • Mike says

      October 17, 2018 at 8:17 am

      Nancy,

      My advice would be to prune. I prune everything to make it nice and full.

      Reply

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