After a crazy spring season that saw demand for vegetable and bedding plants soar, Bonnie plant company breaks ground on new headquarters.

Bonnie Plants which has called Union Springs, Alabama, home since its founding as a small farm in 1918 just broke ground on a state-of-the-art corporate headquarters about an hour northeast in Opelika, Alabama, quite close to Auburn University.

Why move to the Auburn/Opelika area from the town that's been the company's physical and spiritual home for 102 years? Bonnie plants just entered a formal partnership with Auburn University. Auburn University has long been recognized nationally for their talented faculty and student body as well as their alumni networks, which Bonnie will partner with to expand in the future.

Bonnie will focus on engagement with students and faculty to help solve real world challenges in areas such as product development, logistics and analytics. This will include guest speakers for the classroom and faculty events. Bonnie will also provide in kind support for multiple gardens across campus and outreach projects.

Bonnie has made investments in several key areas of the university, including the Harbert College of Business and the College of Agriculture. They hope the partnership with Auburn will create additional awareness of Bonnie as a potential employer for students and alumni, with the goal of increasing internships and full-time recruiting.

The new Bonnie building, slated to open late 2021, will include several sustainable features, including a ten foot high indoor living wall by the company Air8Green that will naturally purify the air in the office.

The design of the facility incorporates Bonnie's agriculture roots, with a modern farmhouse approach on the exterior and exposed wood beams inside, almost as if they literally took a barn and renovated it into an office. The new headquarters will include a demonstration garden where they'll highlight new varieties for associates and customers.

Bonnie Plants won't be leaving their old facility after the new one is built either, with over four hundred and fifty acres of production in Union Springs, it is Bonnie's largest and most strategically important facility of the eighty growing operations they have around the United States.

Most of the Bonnie plants we get in our area come from our local Bonnie grower on Albany Post Road in Montgomery. There they get plug trays sent from the Alabama facility to grow out to finished product. This cuts down on the amount of time the plants have to be grown in Montgomery, which saves on heating costs and by being local saves of delivery costs as well.

Also with Bonnie's expansion down south they will getting into many more flower varieties in the coming years, something that has been lacking in their program to date. With all the vegetables and herbs that we went through this spring, add flowers into the mix and they better bring a bigger truck.