Are those for real?

Yesterday The American Horticultural Society posted this picture of Clematis on their Facebook page. By the time I saw it many people had shared and linked to it. The problem? It’s a Photo-shopped picture, which a couple of people noticed and commented on at The Societies Facebook page. Then the post went missing. No explanation, just gone. I left a comment at the site asking what happened to it. The comment remains unanswered.

It’s very easy to be taken in by a photo like this since we are inclined by nature to “believe what we see”. When you remove a picture like this with no explanation one gets the impression that the folks at The Society are wishing it never happened. Why not just leave the photo up and fess up? I and many others had linked to the photo and now those links lead nowhere.

On The Internet what you do never really goes away. When you make a mistakle it’s best to just admit it and move on. Answer curious questions like mine. The pain of getting fooled will soon go away, and everyone can have a good laugh.

The decline of the county fair

The El Dorado County Fair has come, and gone. It's turning into the amazing shrinking county fair, and if the trend continues it may just disappear. Why do we have the fair in June? School is out, and they need kids spending money on the rides to make it work. If they wait till late summer, when fairs would normally be held, the kids have already headed back to school.

According the the fairs website, "The purpose of today’s fairs is to promote agricultural and animal husbandry, local resource and industrial promotion, education, entertainment, competition, youth development, and community outreach. Several trends over the years have allowed the fairgrounds to become revenue generating entertainment and exhibition venue that operates on a year round basis." How can you have a "biggest tomato" or " best tasting apple pie" or "plumpest chicken" contest, when the first tomato hasn't even ripened on the vine?

I wish the fair would go back to being what county fairs once where. A place to show off local agricultural wonders, and have some fun.  The fair has turned into a carnival, with a smattering of agricultural displays. Let's hold the fair in the late summer, and emphasize the agricultural side of the show. Since the fair is already struggling, let's have a make over where the interest in growing your own, and competing with others is the main focus. Sure, the kids will have gone back to school. So what? Hold the fair on the weekend. Give us a place to share and compete with others with real agricultural products. The time is "ripe" to re-emphasize the importance of fresh food, agriculture, and seasonality in our lives by bringing back the county fairs of the past.

7 ways to show your cheapness this Valentines Day!

Boston.com posted an article titled, "7 Ways to Save on Flowers". (If you cannot access the article from the link, go here and click the top story)It seems The Boston Globe only knows independent florists as places to go and bicker about price. The only mention of independent florist is this. "Your local florist may also do business online at competitive prices. Read customers' online reviews and scour coupon sites such as retailmenot.com, couponshack.com and coupons.com for discounts. And don't fall for throw-ins like chocolates and stuffed animals - those just add extra costs and create the illusion of a deal." Kindness, it's just an illusion!

Well, where do I go to get a deal on flowers? The Globe knows. Costco and the local grocery store! This from the post, "Check grocery stores, whose floral departments may be bigger than you realized. For example, last year Costco was offering three dozen long-stemmed red roses in a vase with baby's breath online for $99.99, and the company's warehouse stores were selling a dozen long-stemmed roses for $14.99." Online ordering is mentioned twice in the article.

How about a little Valentine love for your local florist trying to compete against this kind of publicity? On top of it all Boston.com tells us, "Giving your loved one a single long-stemmed rose is a powerful statement of commitment. And you can put the $75 or so that you save toward dinner for two -- or another gift." Gee Boston.com, couldn't they save even  more money and take that $75 and spend it at the Costco food service court, instead of some overpriced restaurant? Paying $75 for a dinner for two is not an illusion!

Big problems in "Busy Lizzy" land

One of the most popular flowers grown in greenhouses in The Impatiens.  Known lovingly as "Busy Lizzie's", these plants make up a huge proportion of the flowers grown in greenhouses for retail sale in spring. Imagine being a grower that depends on this flower to make ends meet, and you find out that a new disease is threatening your crop. The disease, Plasmopara obducens, is also known as "Impatiens downy mildew".  In 2011 the disease was confirmed in coastal southern California, northeast Illinois, northern Indiana, the Twin Cities region of Minnesota, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, Long Island, and upstate New York. If you’re in those regions, keep an eye out for the disease. Green Profit, a trade magazine tells us what growers will be looking for in the greenhouses.

"• Lightly chlorotic or stippled leaves. Subtle gray markings may also appear on the upper leaf surface. • Leaves may turn downward from the leaf margins. • A white, downy growth may be present on the underside of affected leaves. "

This disease is so serious that Thompson & Morgan, a larger seed company won't even be offering Impatiens this year. According to their website, "Thompson & Morgan has decided to drop all walleriana types (as this is the only strain that succumbs to the mildew) from the range. With sales in excess of £1,000,000 it would have been an all too easy for us to carry on offering our best selling bedding plant, but we want our customers to be completely satisfied."

This disease only affects the "Walleriana" type of Impatiens.  "New Guinea" impatiens are highly tolerant of the disease and should not be confused with the "Walleriana" (Busy Lizzie) types. A big issue with this disease is  it often does not manifest itself in  the greenhouse, but later in the customers garden. A lot like the Late Blight of Tomatoes that occurred in 2009.

Green Profit has this advice for anyone thinking of selling Impatiens at their garden center this year. "The phrase 'What they don’t know can’t hurt ’em' is not applicable here. In fact, it could end up hurting you. Customers who find impatiens downy mildew on their plants after purchase—whether it’s in baskets or beds—will likely assume your business is at fault. 'What, me go back to Joe’s Greenhouses? They sold me those bum impatiens.' Not what you want happening." Here is what garden centers should do for their customers according to Green Profit,

"Inform the customer of: • the disease’s existence, especially if the disease has been verified in or near your region. • the symptoms (leaf yellowing and premature leaf and flower drop) to watch for. • that although plants may be healthy when they leave the garden center, they could become infected once planted into the landscape, with the risk of susceptibility being higher in beds with a previous history of the disease. • its higher incidence of occurring in locations that are heavily shaded, densely planted and stay moist for long times. • planting measures that could lower the likelihood of the impatiens downy mildew—and diseases, in general. "

If you live in one of the affected areas check out your local garden center, and see what advice they are or will be offering this spring. Garden centers that have worked hard to build trust with their customers will be honest and forthright, explaining the issue and possible solutions. It will be interesting to see how garden centers, growers, and the individual gardener respond to this issue come spring, and summer.

"The finest independent garden centers"?

My last post concerning the partnership between Master Nursery Garden Centers and True Value got the conversation going at our Retail Garden Center Group on Facebook. The question for current Master Nurseries. How do you feel about your private plant brand, Garden Elements being sold out of True Value hardware stores? IGC's (Independent Garden Centers) built the brand and are now going to have it sold through the local hardware store, which may have a location close to a current Master Nursery. Is "the ability to choose from among True Value Company’s 60,000+ warehouse-stocked products", worth it? At the Garden Elements Facebook Page a recent post say's, "Garden Elements the next big plant brand Only available at Master Nursery Garden Centers and now , new this year, Home & Garden Showplaces. The finest independent garden Centers." So a True Value Hardware by carrying "Garden Elements" from Master Nursery is now one of the "finest independent garden centers"?

Curious if this is looked at as a win-win situation, or is someone getting a bigger slice of pie than the other party?

Adapt or die

Over at Garden Rant there is a post from Michelle titled, "What should a flower show be?" It addresses the declining attendance at these types of shows. At one time flower shows where the "bee's knees". If you recognize that saying you remember when flower shows we're popular.

Elizabeth has a couple of good suggestions for making the shows more exciting. I think that Duane Kelly, who founded the San Francisco and Northwest Flower shows hit it on the head when he said,  "younger people are...less interested in the aesthetics of gardening and more in the environmental benefits, like composting."

So there you have it. The answer is staring us in the face. Change the shows so there are more displays utilizing what people want to see, "how to" displays. Why not have displays showing composting, pest control, high-density fruit tree planting, etc." Give the people what they want! We talked about this very subject just a post or two ago here. People have changed along with their needs. If flower shows are going to exist in the future they, like the rest of us, had better change and adapt or face an irrelevant future.

"Got Bulbs?"

A post at Garden Rant today pointed me to an article at Garden Center Magazine titled, "Branding Company looks to   re-vitalize bulb market".  According to the article, "Brand revitalization agency, Woodbine, has been selected by a group of 17 flower bulb trading companies to develop and execute a marketing campaign to invigorate consumer demand for flowering bulbs throughout North America." According to Woodbine "North America accounts for 30% of worldwide flower bulb demand, indicating a growth opportunity here. In 2008, a North American market study undertaken by Knowledge Networks, Inc. identified opportunities to increase demand among current bulb gardeners, while introducing bulbs to a whole new generation of potential gardeners." As we have talked about before bulb sales have taken a nosedive in the last decade.  As people choose to fill their time with other activities, bulbs which require planting before the spring season has arrived, have gotten left behind. To remedy this Anthos, the Royal Trade Association for Nursery Stock and Flower Bulbs headquartered in Amsterdam, Netherlands has decided to throw some money at the problem. They have committed to a three year, $1.9 million campaign. According to Peter Mitchell, Woodbine President & CEO, "we believe our campaign has the potential to do for the flower bulb industry what ‘Got Milk‘ has done for the milk industry".

Remember the "Got Milk" Campaign from 1993? It was a $23 million a year campaign that is credited with, " greatly increasing milk sales in California though not nationwide." These bulb companies are going to spend 1/12 of what the Milk advisory board did back in the 90's, yet Woodbine say's it will have the potential of doing the same thing "Got Milk" did 25 years ago. Remember the "Got Milk" campaign only increased sales in California, so Woodbine has it's work cut out for it to do the same thing for bulbs.

It's amazing that we are still pointing at an ad campaign from  the last millennium, a time before The Internet and social media existed, as the way forward. It would be nice to think we can change people's behavior with a ad campaign, and bulb sales will increase. Not sure if bulb sales will increase with this ad campaign, but it does show that there is still money to be made with bulbs. Just not the way most of us expect.

Read the comments for the article by Garden Center Magazine for a clue as to what the problem really is with bulbs.