John Ed and Sam Tankard, two hardworking brothers and graduates of Virginia Polytechnic Institute, began lining out their first nursery stock in 1933. Sam, sporting a Harvard Landscape Architecture degree and working for a landscape nursery in Hickory, North Carolina convinced John Ed, a farmer and county agent to convert truck farm acreage to nursery stock. After World War II, they began to earnestly distribute nursery stock in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast.

John Ed`s son, John E. Jr., began working for Tankard Nurseries in 1957, after graduating from Long Island Agricultural & Technical Institute, where he studied horticulture, and then spending two years in Germany with the Army`s armored calvary division. Although no longer with us, John Jr.`s legacy of integrity, reliability and compassion remain as fixtures that guide us daily.

Girard's Crimson Girard Hybrid