Barbara Pintozzii, a garden blogger from Chicago writes a blog titled, Mr. McGregor’s Daughter. She had a post today at Garden Rant titled, “A letter to independent garden center owners”. After attending the IGC (Independent Garden Center) show in Chicago a couple of weeks ago she say’s, “I want to make it clear right away, I love IGCs.  They're among my favorite places to visit on earth. I get a bit of a high while wandering through a great garden center. I have just one complaint, and it's a deal-breaker.  At the IGC show a couple weeks ago, Raymond Evison ignored the title of his ‘Five Trends from Chelsea ’ presentation to assert that there was only one trend: quality.  I couldn't agree more.”

Barbara continues, “While the failure to pot up perennials and woody plants is understandable, the extra cost should be expended.  A pot-bound plant may take years to recover. I talked with representatives from companies that require their plant product to be sold in distinctive containers (branded plants).  One had no answer to my question of what an IGC should do if one of their plants needed to be moved to a larger container.  The other, Proven Winners, informed me that the IGC should send the plant back to the wholesaler for potting up.”

My fellow IGC’s, have you ever been told by Proven Winners or any other plant brand that we could send back overgrown annuals and perennials to the grower for potting up to a larger size? If you have, please let me know of this company as I would love to do business with them. Are you reimbursed for the cost of the plant, or given a replacement plant? I love the idea! If more brands and growers took some of the risk involved with selling at retail we could replace more overgrown and distressed plants with fresh stock. We know the chains and box stores get pay at scan treatment, why don’t we?