IKEA, maker culture, and hydroponics

We talked earlier about How the Competition May be Hard to Spot. Food growing has taken on a life of its own and everybody has new ideas and techniques they want to talk about. Eliooo is a book which describes how to make a hydroponic system for growing food from parts bought at the local IKEA.

Two huge takeaways for me are, the explosive growth of the “maker culture”, or DIY (Do it yourself) movement and the mainstreaming of hydroponics. Oh, and one other takeaway. This is all done without the need of a local garden center. It’s only a matter of time before IKEA seize on this and start selling vegetable plants. They already sell house plants.

When we first started talking about selling hydroponics here in July of 2008 it was considered esoteric and something only marijuana growers used.  No more! It’s going main stream and the problem for many garden shops is the people who are really interested in this stuff often think of places like IKEA, or Home Depot before they think of the local garden center.

The other important trend going on here is the "maker culture". The author of Eliooo, Antonio Scarponi says he wants to show how to make this out of stuff you may already have, or can buy cheaply.  How will you stay relevant when you need to sell "stuff" and these projects are more about ideas. How can you spread ideas and still make enough to stay in business? It will involve a new way of thinking and valuing what we do as horticultural professionals.

Are we boring our customers to death?

We're boring our customers to death according to Lloyd Traven of Peace Tree Farm, an organic greenhouse business

located in Kintnersville, PA. In an article at The Doylestown-Buckingham-New Briton Patch Lloyd say's, "we've stopped asking 'what's new?' We've stopped presenting 'new' to the garden centers. But here's the problem. The consumer didn't. The consumer is saying to themselves, 'What's new?' the answer is, not much. It's all the same stuff."

This is the elephant in the room. With the recession, and customers changing habits, many garden centers have turned to tried an true plants and goods. No one seem's to want to take a chance on new plants or ideas for fear that they will not be accepted by a more frugal customer. Lloyd say's, "'so if it's all the same stuff, at every garden center they go to, they might buy something, but they might not. That means that there is no loyalty, no relationship, nothing that makes that customer want or need to come back.'"

Excitement doesn't have to just come from the type of plant's you carry, but can include other gardening goods you have as well as the way you run your business. Garden centers that show customers new way's of doing things also create excitement. This year at our garden center we are setting up a hydroponic display growing tomatoes outside. Most people associate hydroponics with growing stuff indoors, yet it's the perfect setup for a person wanting to grow tomatoes or other vegies outside under the sun. It's a hobby that shout's repeat business, and is exciting and new enough to keep retired engineers and young gen Y people interested.

Excitement also comes straight from the people who work at the garden center. If the nursery people at your store are not excited about gardening and sharing that excitement, then you have a problem. Exciting people are a must. Just having a degree in horticulture won't cut it in retail. More important is to have an attitude of  joy and enthusiasm for the most basic gardening tasks. Remember, for most people it's their first attempt at a garden and they need an enthusiastic coach. Someone who causes them to want to come back time and again to get a dose of enthusiasm and hope.

Where does one go to meet with other's in the trade who "get it", and want to make a difference? If your an employee or owner of a locally owned garden center or nursery, and want to hang with the most innovative and forward thinking people in the trade head over to our Facebook group, "Independent Garden Centers and Nurseries" and ask for membership. This is the place where the future of the independent garden center or nursery is being worked out. Want a seat on the bus to the future? Go here to find out more.

The gardening market has changed

While I was at The ANLA Clinic earlier this year we listened to a man (can't remember who), who said many

garden centers are too big, and have to much inventory on hand for the current situation. Someone in the audience said that they needed the extra plants so as to be able to make nice displays. Whether they need the plants to  sell or not, they we're going to keep ordering so they could make nice displays. This surprised me as I have over the last couple of years decided that we would only carry what sold. Sounds simple doesn't it?

I wonder how many stores still order based on what they believe a nursery should carry, as opposed to what works these days. Bulbs? Didn't carry them this year. You know what, we didn't have to put the majority on sale before they sprouted in the boxes this year. Sure a few people we're disappointed we didn't carry them, but not that many. Actually we told our locally owned competition we we're not going to carry bulbs this year, and would send people over to them. They ordered extra, and you know what? They are still trying to get rid of them, and they are on sale.

Somehow a balance needs to be achieved between the notion of a garden center, and the reality. I have a friend who was in the nursery business for over a quarter century. He told me you couldn't be a proper nursery and not carry roses.  How many nurseries continue to carry large selections of roses only to put a large portion on sale at the end of the season? The darn deer eat them here, and as such the demand is not great like other more suburban areas. We don't carry roses. Haven't looked back.  I would expect that the Christmas season is like that for many of us. The problem is most of that Christmas stuff never sells, and ends up in the back room waiting to make an appearance the following year. I realize some stores do a bang up Christmas season, but the majority do not.  If Christmas season continues to be a loss, maybe it would be better to just close for a month or two during the winter?  Your nursery may do a great job during the Christmas season. Keep it up!

I have a feeling that this year is going to be another tough one for the trade. Especially here in California where fundamental problems are going to keep the economy shaky. If you waiting around for the economy to "improve" so it can be business as usual, you have a long wait. Better to learn to live and thrive in what we are experiencing now.

There are great opportunities for garden centers who can tap into current concerns.  We are focused on consumables, and the products needed to be successful in your pursuit, such as organic fertilizers and pest controls. Even more important we have the knowledge to help you do it right. Perennials and annuals in smaller sizes are still great sellers.  We keep varieties not usually found at the box stores. Native plants are a niche no one does well in our area, so we now have a great selection of natives from our partner, Lotus Valley Natives. Indoor and hydroponic gardening has been huge for us. Another thing the box stores don't do well, yet. Find your niche and build on that. The traditional garden center market is no longer there.

17th century coffehouses, portable farms, and your local garden center

We are at the cusp of a gardening revolution. Every where we look new ideas and people are invigorating the field of horticulture. Some feel threatened by the changes, others look forward to the next development. As a nurseryman for over 30 years that I have felt both feelings lately. There is no better time to be in the garden center business than right now, yet that does not mean there are not great challenges to be faced. There will be many more small, medium, and large nurseries that will go out of business. Anytime there is a revolution the world as we know it gets turned upside down. Rather than pine for the old days of the garden center world, better to ride the wave into the future. What does the future hold for us? Ideas that at first seem outlandish, then come to make sense. My last post dealt with window farms. Window farms? How can you have a farm in a window? The idea that it is even a farm is a revolutionary idea. We all have a picture of what a "farm" is, and most of us would not think of a small window garden as a farm. This is one of the big changes we are talking about. It's the change we make in our own minds. A farm is a state of mind. Yes, you can be a farmer and live in the city. How about portable farms?

Check out the website, Portable Farms. They claim, "A Portable Farms& Aquaponics System is a onsite, food-production facility that ensures food security." Key words,"food security". One of the reasons we are seeing a resurgence in home-grown food gardens is concern about how commercial food is being grown and distributed. By growing your own you are in control. Just the idea of "portable farms" is intriguing. The use of hydroponics is growing by leaps and bounds. The necessary changes are coming that will allow us to grow tasty food hydroponically. The taste of commercial grown hydroponic (hot-house) food has been poor, just as commercially grown in soil food is never quite as tasty as home-grown.

Portable Farms makes use of hydroponics and aquaculture. I cannot vouch for the results of this system, yet it seems to me a great idea for producing food using modern technology. Here is a description of the system, and the inventor Colle Davis.  Colle and his wife Phyllis claim, "they enjoyed all the organic table vegetables, berries, tomatoes, and fish they could possibly eat with enough surplus to feed 50 people daily vegetables and one serving of fish per week, per person, for an entire year."

This is only the beginning. As Colle says, "Sometimes, all it takes is one simple idea that leads to other ideas and then on to other answers . . . it is in that collaboration that people will solve the problems of the world". In my last post about window farms the idea of collaboration was key. One person has an idea, its spread through the internet where someone else improves on the idea, and so on. The pace of change is what is so exciting. Ideas that took years to find an audience in the past now just take days, if not hours.

Just as coffee houses in the 17th century became places for discussion and world-changing ideas, the small local garden center should become its 21st century equivalent.  Places for the community to gather and share ideas that will change the world. It's coming sooner than we think.