Maybe there is just so much news out there to bother with this. Bordier's Nursery, a $27 million year operation with over 600 employees filed for bankruptcy. They listed over $50 million in debts. This is big news, yet when you Goggle Bordier's Bankruptcy the only news is from , Court House News, and other legal web crawler services, and this blog. Where are the horticultural news services?
While we hear the main stream media bemoan the advent of blogs, you have to wonder what we missed over the years. This is one reason why garden bloggers are becoming more and more important to the gardening world. They are the ones bringing up subjects that we need to address in our businesses.
The horticultural industries are in a rapid state of change. What we need now is to address areas that might have seemed taboo before. Sure it can be painful to address some issues, but that's what needed. Garden Bloggers often bring up issues that are painful, or don't fit with the image we have of ourselves. Yet these are the very people who often shop at our stores, and want to continue shopping with us.
Ilona's Garden Journal, a blog from Ohio, had a good post on this. She basically tells us what she want's from garden centers. If I owned a nursery near where Ilona gardens, I would make contact with her. Let Ilona know that we appreciate her taking the time to express her views. Link our blog to her's, etc. This is the future as I see it. Sure we will look at the big name blogs for the big news, but it's the locally involved garden bloggers that will wield a lot of influence in each of our locales. This is the grass roots support we need.