Star Roses and Plants/Conard-Pyle announces new products and sourcing manager

Barry Yinger has joined Star Roses and Plants/Conard-Pyle, the introducers of the Knock Out Family of Roses, as its new products and sourcing manager. Yinger will travel the world in search of new woody ornamental plants.

Yinger has managed a retail garden center, headed new plant development for Hines Nursery for 15 years, and has worked for several botanic gardens in the United States and South Korea, including serving as the curator of Asian Collections, USDA National Arboretum in Washington, DC. He speaks Japanese and has a long history of working with nurserymen in Japan to introduce their plants in the U.S.

During one of his 90-plus trips to Asia, he discovered Hosta yingeri, which bears his name. Yinger has also collected and introduced hardy genetics of Camellia japonica from islands off the coast of North Korea. He is a judge at the Philadelphia Flower Show, and is also a member of the Gold Medal Awards Committee of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. He still lives on the farm where he was born in York, PA.

A graduate of the University of Maryland, Yinger studied plant science and Asian languages (Japanese and Chinese). He also holds a master’s degree in horticulture from the University of Delaware, Longwood Graduate Program.

To learn more, visit www.conard-pyle.com.