Klupenger Nursery & Greenhouses, Inc. Announces Sale to Spring Garden Group

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Press Release - March 11, 2005

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Klupenger Nursery & Greenhouses, Inc. Announces
Sale of Business to the Spring Garden Group

AURORA, OR - March 11, 2005

Klupenger Nursery & Greenhouses, Inc., a leading Oregon grower and marketer of woody ornamental plants, announced today that it has been acquired by Klupengers Nursery LLC, a new entity organized by Bristlecone LLC, Spring Garden Corporate Advisors, Inc., and existing management. Under terms of the transaction Ray Klupenger, the long standing President and former owner of the Company, will continue in his position for one year after which he will be succeeded by Dan Klupenger, the Company's current Vice President of Production.

Ray Klupenger stated "In selling the business to the Spring Garden Group, our nursery has been acquired by a group that has a deep knowledge of and success in our industry and will provide us with the financial resources to support new facilities and to supply our markets which have increased in size in the last several years."

Jack Hesse, President of Spring Garden Corporate Advisors, stated "In my thirty years of acquiring and growing businesses in the nursery industry, I have been very impressed with the company that Ray and Dan Klupenger have built. Klupengers Nursery, located in one of the most ideal climatic regions in the country, has a heritage dating back sixty years of consistent quality of its plants, and as a result the Company has become an important supplier to garden centers, wholesalers, and landscape contractors. We intend to support the existing management and staff which remain in place and provide the resources to enable Klupengers to become an even more prominent factor in the plant industry."

About Klupengers Nursery
Klupengers Nursery, founded in 1946, is a grower of woody ornamental plants, including Japanese maples, dwarf and other conifers, rhododendrons, and other broadleaf evergreens and deciduous shrubs. Located in Aurora, Oregon, 25 miles south of Portland in the heart of the Willamette Valley, the Company's products are sold throughout the US and Canada primarily to independent garden, rewholesalers, and landscape contract markets through its eight person sales group.

About Spring Garden Corporate Advisors
Spring Garden Corporate Advisors, formed in 2003, specializes in providing financing to companies in the garden products and horticultural fields. Through the Spring Garden Group it has established a new type of program under which it invests in and, in appropriate cases, acquires established growers of ornamental plants. Each company is individually financed with management holding an equity ownership in the company for which it is responsible. Through its recently established First Realty Horticultural Investment Company, it invests capital in land, improvements, and related assets through sale leaseback transactions.

About Bristlecone LLC
Bristlecone, founded in 2002, invests in both small and midsized businesses with growth potential for long-term capital appreciation.

Contacts:

Dan Klupenger
Klupengers Nursery LLC
503-678-5838
dan@klupenger.com Jack Hesse
Spring Garden Corporate Advisors, Inc.
781-489-6644
jhesse@sgcainc.com

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