Proven Winners Designates First Botanical Trail

Proven Winners recently announced the designation of its first Proven Winners Botanical Trail.

Kentucky’s Rockcastle River Trading Co. received the designation as the first such property in the nation.

A designated Proven Winners Botanical Trail exemplifies a property that successfully integrates Proven Winners plants as a complement to the natural landscape, while respecting local landscape tradition and indigenous plant material.

Rockcastle River Trading Co. is the popular home and garden store located on the family property and boyhood home of Jon Carloftis. Author of Beautiful Gardens of Kentucky, Beyond the Windowsill, and First a Garden, Carloftis is an award-winning garden designer, garden writer, television guest, author and lecturer.

The Botanical Trail will open with a ribbon cutting ceremony on June 13, 2014 with a gathering of state and national plant and nature lovers. On June 14, 2014, the public is invited to hear the history of the location and the plants that make up the trail.

Rockcastle River Trading Co. is located in Livingston, Ky. Complementing the grounds is a newly created series of walking trails that meander along the Rockcastle River and that were part of the wilderness road once traveled by Daniel Boone.

Intended to be somewhat of a plant adventure, many of the newest selections of Proven Winners plants are effectively designed and integrated into focal points along the trails. Jon notes “I grew up with a tremendous respect for the beautiful native Kentucky landscape. Using so many Proven Winners plants in my landscape projects, and seeing their exceptional performance, I was attracted to the Proven Winners Botanical Trail concept as a way to showcase their beauty and yet still maintain a respect for the native surroundings.”

As the first designated Proven Winners Botanical Trail, the Rockcastle River Trading Co. property joins six other properties with special designations from Proven Winners: Mackinac Island’s Hotel Iroquois, Charlotte’s Duke Mansion, The Grand Tradition Estate and Gardens in California, Meadow Brook Hall in Michigan, the Governor’s Mansion in Illinois and Kentucky’s Governor’s Mansion. Each of these properties are all designated as Proven Winners Signature Gardens.

For more information, please visit www.joncarloftis.com or www.provenwinners.com