28 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • MAY 2018
WHOLLY MOLI
HORACE HAGEDORN:
MIRACLE-GRO’S PLANTER
By STEPHANIE PERRONE
A half century ago, Horace
Hagedorn and his business partners
sowed the seeds of a water-soluble
plant food that would make gardens
grow big and healthy — a product
now known as Miracle-Gro.
The advertising executive from
Sands Point was approached by
Otto Stern, who sought advice
about marketing, when they
hatched the idea to form a fertilizer
company. They hired a well-known
Rutgers professor, O. Wesley
Davidson, to formulate it. The
widely advertised plant food was
so popular that in 1995, it merged
with Scotts Corporation to become
Scotts Miracle-Gro Company.
“The truth of the matter is, Scotts
didn’t buy Miracle-Gro,” Hagedorn
told The Wall Street Journal
a year later. “The truth of
the matter is, we bought
Scotts.”
He sought to clarify
confusion created
because the Scotts
name was seriously
marketed. But the
majority of the
company’s stock
was held by the
leaders of Miracle-
Gro.
Before that move,
Hagedorn bought
out Stern in the
1980s and plowed
ahead. His widely
advertised TV
c omme r c i a l s
later cemented
the company as a nationally
known brand. Because
Hagedorn had worked in
advertising, he knew how to
make a personal pitch about
his product and get people
more interested.
Hagedorn credited
the name of the
product to his first
wife, Peggy.
Besides having a
catchy name, the
liquid fertilizer
proved successful
because of its ability
to help weak plants
receive nutrients
quickly, and the
fact that it is less
likely to burn plants.
The company sells
formulas specifically for tomatoes,
roses, trees, shrubs, and houseplants.
Hagedorn retired in 1997 and
became a full-time philanthropist.
His son, Jim Hagedorn, became
chairman, CEO and president of the
Scotts Company.
Some of Hagedorn’s personal
earnings from the sale were donated
to Hofstra University’s school of
education and Adelphi University’s
business school, both of which were
named after Hagedorn. They are
just some of the many philanthropic
contributions by the nonprofit
Hagedorn Foundation.
Although he passed away in 2005 at
his Sands Point home, Hagedorn’s
success with Miracle-Gro lives on.
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