Peter's Special Plant Food

History

• What is now J.R. Peters, Inc. designed, formulated and produced quality commercial fertilizers starting in 1947. Some products are favorites of home gardeners, but a large part of the business serves the specialty agriculture and horticulture --- commercial nursery --- markets. The reason you can't buy "Peters fertilizer" these days is that the retail name was sold some time ago, when Scotts --- as in Scotts Miracle-Gro --- owned the company. So when the Peters family bought the company back in 1997, according to Jack Peters' statement on the Jack's Classic website, a new name was needed.

Jack's Classic

• Available only in independent nurseries and garden centers and online, Jack's Classic products are formulated for home gardeners. An all-purpose 20-20-20 fertilizer leads the line, which also includes specialty fertilizers for petunias, acid-loving plants, houseplants, "bloom boosting," African violets and several different orchid formulas.

Jack's Professional

• These J.R. Peters fertilizers are designed primarily for greenhouse growers in the commercial horticulture and specialty agriculture markets. The Jack's Professional line includes more than 40 different formulations --- from chrysanthemum and fall and spring pansy fertilizers to poinsettia, tropical foliage and Easter lily products. The professional product line comes in 25-lb. bags that would take most of us a lifetime to use up.

Other Peters Services

• The J.R. Peters company also includes the J.R. Peters Laboratory, which chemically analyzes fertilizer solutions, water, plant tissue and growing media. The company also offers on-site quality control monitoring of fertilizer and soilless media production facilities. J.R. Peters provides toll manufacturing as well, or custom formulation, blending and packaging of private-label fertilizers.