"Make Over The Outdoors"

Parade magazine has published “5 Easy (and Cheap) Ways To Remodel”. Besides “Create a Beautiful Backsplash”, “Go for Glass”, “Liven Up the Lighting”, and “Customize the Closets” we have “Make Over the Outdoors”.

To quote the article, “Outdoor ‘rooms’ are one of the most cost-effective ways of increasing your living space. If you already have a deck or patio, consider turning part of it into an open-air kitchen, a feature especially in demand among today’s buyers.”

Here is an idea I had never thought off, “In areas where a home’s square footage is used to assess property taxes, such backyard “additions” won’t increase your taxes.” I am sure that's why lots of people have not "made over" their "outdoor rooms", fear of higher taxes.

The best part of the remodel, “Ease Factor: With a little help, skilled homeowners can assemble their kitchen in a few weekends.” Finally, “Cost: From a few hundred bucks, for a counter area next to the grill.”

I thought the phrase "skilled homeowner" was intersesting. Skilled in what, owning a home? I believe what they mean is homeowners skilled in carpentry and plumbing, which I think most folks are not. So there you have it. Make over your outdoor room and keep your taxes down. Who would have thought!

The not so "Happy Frog"

Wanting to touch on why my former garden center was closing down I realized that there are numerous reasons. There are too many for one post so lets look at it over a series of posts. I think there are lessons here for anyone contemplating opening or buying a garden center, so I will post these at my “The Art of Running a Garden Center” site also.

While the main reason the store is closing is due to current events and ownership, the seeds of destruction we’re planted by the former owners, my ex-partners. It started when we began our partnership! This now goes back about 11 years.

When we were invited to buy into ownership of the business we thought it would be vital to have a partnership agreement. I was worried about what would happen if we had a falling out later. Our soon to be partners didn’t want to bother with one. We were excited about being owners of a happening place and jumped in with nothing more than a handshake. Thus the seed’s of the eventual downfall of the garden center were planted at a time of great optimism and profitability. Who would have known?

There may come a time when you have an opportunity to partner up with someone in a business venture. If you really feel this is the only way to proceed then you MUST have a partnership agreement. A partnership agreement spells out who is in charge of what, and if the partnership doesn’t work, the agreement spells out how to dissolve the partnership in a somewhat graceful way. My advice, the only partnership you ever want to enter into is with your life mate. Stay away from business partnerships.

My former partner’s had quite the egos and felt they were the controlling partners in the business. I don’t remember us discussing that but they started telling us what to do. Without an agreement the partnership is considered a general partnership with 50/50 ownership. There is no controlling partner. While business was growing at a rapid pace the problems we're few , but soon as the growth wasn’t fast enough for our partners the disagreements on how to run the business got worse and worse.

So what do you do? We just wanted to get out of what had turned a fun job into a nightmare. Because our partners weren’t about to sell to us, and they refused to buy our half, we we're in a quandry. <p this="" class="We’ll to make a long story short there is a way to end a partnership where one partner want’s to sell and the other doesn’t. You have to hire an attorney and start a dissolution of partnership. The court will move in, sell off the assets, pay the bills and anything left is split between the partners. My partners couldn’t believe we could do this as they never got it in their heads that we were equal partners. All this trouble because of their insistence that a partnership agreement was not needed, and my inability to demand one.

Instead of us owning the Auburn store and continuing the business while our partners could run the other store, they ended up buying us out. Now they had to run both stores! The people who really cared about the business are gone and the people who wanted out are stuck running it.

The real problem for our now ex-partners is that they had no one to help run the Auburn store. Through some very poor employee relations they had chased most of the workers away, but that's for our another discussion.

We went over to see the old store just last week. Plants we're untended and dying and we found out they were moving everything up to the Grass Valley store and basically abandoning the site. The picture of the sign shows a weeping Japanese maple that we planted years ago, brown and dead! The landlord now has to rent the land, and I doubt a nursery is in the plans.

While the loss of the nursery for the community is sad, the ultimate results are we now have a great garden center and are as happy as we have ever been! So we will chaulk it up to a hard lesson learned.

A million trees for Los Angeles.

This story from Los Angeles mirrors the post on Sacramento’s Tree Program we talked about. According to Green Beam News “L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa wants Los Angeles residents, businesses and city departments to plant 1 million trees during the next several years. The city distributed free seedlings and 5-gallon trees Sept. 30. The city partnered with nonprofit organizations such as TreePeople and L.A. Conservation Corps to continue giving away trees. The initiative is encouraging people to plant 5-gallon or larger trees. The city is asking residents and businesses to plant trees that provide shade, require little water and establish relatively easily, said George Gonzalez, Urban Forestry Division chief forester.” While I am all for trees being planted I have a couple of questions about this and other programs like this. According to the article “The Trees for Green LA program designers have developed a comprehensive List of Available Residential Trees with input from several urban forestry experts, including landscape architects and local arborists. The experts have ensured that a variety of low- and moderate-water-use species, appropriate for the different areas in Los Angeles, are offered, although available species may vary from season to season. Approximately 30 species are expected to be available at any given time.”

The article continues, “Because the purpose of this program is to provide residents with ornamental shade trees, palm trees (which offer only minimal shade) are not supplied. For the same reason, trees that produce edible fruit also are not available."

This is the list of trees, and what is most interesting that there are only three native trees on the list, Quercus agrifolia (Coast Live Oak), and Platanus racemosus (California sycamore), and Alnus rhombifolia (White Alder).

The Chinese Tallow tree (Sapium sebiferum) which is a recommended tree is also, according to Global invasive species initative an invasive pest. According to Invasivespecies.org Albizia julibrissin (Mimosa) is also a pest.

My county, El Dorado requires 50% of a commercial landscape be natives to this county. I know most municipalities discourage invasive species. It just seems odd that L.A. would encourage planting of non-natives and invasive species when other municipalities are requiring natives and discouraging invasive species. What good does it do for El Dorado County to have these requirements when our largest city does not?

Historic fruit trees

My kids would roll their eyes when dad would spot a historical marker on the side of the road since I am one of those people who stop and read them. When I was visiting my daughter and granddaughter in Riverside I read about the original navel orange tree, still growing in the middle of a busy road. This is the tree that all navel oranges descended from. My two favorite subjects, history and horticulture. That's Teddy Roosevelt transplanting the other original navel orange. It later died. The trees were brought up from Brazil and planted in what was then the very beginning of the orange boom that built southern California.

It’s apple harvest time on Apple Hill. Located about 15 miles from here it is made up of all sorts of small apple farms that sell all the goodies, pies, cider, arts & crafts, etc. It was originally made up of pears which all died do to disease in the 1950’s and 60’s. They came up with the idea of planting apples and selling direct to the consumer.

One of the original homesteads is the
Larsen Apple Farm, started in the 1860’s. We went up last week to eat pie and drink cider. I love checking out the old Rhode Island Greening apple located just across from the big apple barn. Planted in 1860 the tree still produces! How amazing that it was planted when Lincoln was president.

The Art of Running a Small Garden Center

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I wanted to discuss the reasons why my old nursery “The Happy Frog” was up for sale. When we left it “The Happy Frog” was a happening place. Within four years it’s down and out and for sale.

While I still want to discuss this another thought entered my mind. What if the present owners had a place they could go to get information on running a small garden center? I doubt this would have been the saving grace, for reasons we will discuss. Never-the-less there is no one place a person can go to find out about “The Art of Running a Small Garden Center”.

Tony Avent wrote a book called “So You Want to Start a Nursery” a few years ago. While it is a good read, it discusses mail order nurseries, growing nurseries, and other types of nursery business. Tony is in mail order and only opens the nursery to the public on special days. I want to focus on small and medium sized garden centers that depend on the walk-in customer, with a focus on marketing and customer service. To that end I built a lens here. I have also included a link on my sidebar. This will be a place that anyone interested in small garden centers can go to find and add information.

That’s where you can help. I have already started to populate “The Art of Running a Small Garden Center” with links to posts where we have talked about garden centers in the past. Genie’s the “Plant Traffiker” is one such link. The discussion we had about Lyndale’s Garden Center is another

Can you send me links to any nurseries or garden centers that you frequent or find interesting? Send me links to garden centers that don’t do it right. In other words any thing that you think would interest a potential or current owner of a small garden center. As I receive this info I will transfer it to “The Art of Running a Small Garden Center” lens. Don’t worry about doing this all at once. Just keep your eye’s open and if you see something of interest send it my way.

I choose small garden centers as my focus because that where I have my expertise. In the trade we are always hearing about second and third generation owners and their ideas, yet they all seem to have large multi-million dollar operations. What about garden centers whose sales are less than 3 million dollars a year? In case that sounds like a lot we will in the future look at where the money goes, and boy does it go.

My motivation is to help others, who are interested in opening and/or running a small garden center. It is also to keep me sharp and current. By discussing these things and putting them in one place it keeps me excited about my profession, which at times can be quite trying. I will keep this blog going as it, and the interaction of my readers is what got this idea going in the first place.

My profession is notoriously slow to respond to new ideas and trends. “The Art of Running a Small Garden Center” and this blog are my way of pushing my-self, and anyone else in the trade who wants to go along into the 21^st century.

Independent Nursery for Sale! (not mine)

I found this on the internet. This is our old garden center “The Happy Frog” in Auburn. We sold out to our partners about five years ago to build our present center “The Golden Gecko”. About a year later they sold out to a fellow from The Bay Area.

We had been hearing from our customers who had frequented The Happy Frog that it was having a tough go and looked like it might be up for sale. This was interesting as when we left it, “The Happy Frog” was one of northern California’s most innovative garden centers and was a growing concern.

What happened and what could have been done to save it? This will be the subject of my upcoming post.

Oh, if you are interested you can pick this business and property up for between 2.5 and 5 million!

They’re talking about blogging!

Garden Center Magazine published by Branch Smith Publishing bills itself as a place for “Smart Ideas for Independent Retailers.” We receive the magazine as well as most professionals in the nursery business and related fields. Generally I have found it to be one of the better of the many trade magazines we receive.

The latest issue has arrived and they are talking about blogging! They have a regular section titled “Market Smart: In Depth” This months article is entitled “Retail blogs tap into younger demographic.” Author Sarah Martinez say’s “Blogs, also known as Web logs or journals, are the latest medium vying for attention in an already crowded market. Chances are a good portion of your customer base is at least familiar with bolgs and are probably blogging themselves.”

To the credit of Sarah and Garden Center Magazine I believe this is the first article dealing with blogs for the garden center industry. The article is positive in tone and interviews Anita Campbell, editor of the blog Small Business Trends, and your’s truly. This is the interview that we talked about way back in June. That’s where we found out that most nursery consultants feel that blogs have no relevance for garden centers. I posted about that here.

If you would like to read the interview it is in the June link above. This is great news for the idea of garden center blogs. This is a publication that gets lots of attention in the garden center trade. We’ll see what comes of it.

I hope that if you do decide to use a blog at your garden center you'll follow this advice from the article. ‘“…garden centers should only start a blog if someone on staff will enjoy doing it’, Pitsenberger said. ‘If it’s considered a chore, it won’t get updated and it won’t generate feedback from customers.'” You want feedback! I get feedback from all over the world form my “customers”. They may not actually shop at my physical location, but they shop at garden centers all over and are more than willing to dispense their thoughts and ideas about my business. The suggestions and ideas I have heard don’t always get implemented, but some do, and that’s important. It also broadens our outlook to see how people in other parts of the country and world are relating to gardening, garden centers, competition from box stores, etc.

So hats off to Garden Center Magazine for broaching the subject and realizing that the nursery consultants are wrong and blogging for garden centers is, as the column in the magazine is titled, “Market Smart”.

"What’s in" and "what’s out" for 2007

The Garden Media group has put out a list of trends they see on the horizon for 2007. According to Susan McCoy, outdoor living trend spotter and president of the Garden Media Group, “The outdoor living boom has clearly moved from being ‘just a trend’ to a lifestyle.”

This is a list of potential "ins and out's" in the gardening world. Some are encouraging such as “Eco-Chic Gardens Are In” and “Chemical Needy Gardens Are Out.” While some seem strange like “Escape Gardens Are In” and “Everyday Gardens Are Out”

I find most of what is reported encouraging, such as the movement toward “earth-friendly products" which could "‘quadruple in the next few years’, according to Bruce Butterfield, Research Director at the National Gardening Association”.

The “Outdoor Living is in” and “Indoor living is out” is encouraging. Getting people to be more aware of their environment outside is great. Certainly with the problem of obesity in the young any reason to get the family outside and active in the yard is good. It's weird though when you find out what people are putting into those “outdoor living rooms”. You might wonder if kids won’t get fatter! The study shows, “Thanks to new product offerings like weather-resistant appliances, furniture and electronics, there’s virtually nothing we aren’t doing outside we haven’t spent years doing inside the home, including watching TV.” That old parent’s admonishment of “turn off the TV (computer) and go play outside” might not have the intended effect anymore.

Some of what’s going on has been going on for awhile but is dressed in a fancy package for the study. “Outdoor living” was practiced by my parents with a brick BBQ and a swing set. Back then, according to this study my parent’s "outdoor living" was a noun, not a verb. It seemed like a verb to me! Organic gardening is now “Eco-Chic.” Secret gardens are now “Escape Gardens”.

Studies like these always get the attention of the powers to be in the “horticultural industry”. Lets watch and see how these ideas will be marketed next spring.

The newspapers just don’t get it.

The Sacramento Bee has a couple of articles in the Saturday Home & Garden Section about Latin names for plants. One is called “Key to the plant Kingdom” while the next is “Talking Plants, Latin: A dead language that grows on you.”

We thought it was great that the garden editor Pat Rubin felt it important enough to write about. If you remember we had quite a discussion about Latin names in June. Just goes to show you that garden bloggers are blazing trails.

I wanted to comment at the paper about this but to get on the comment section of their web page means first you have to register. Most of the time when you register all you need is a name, password, and e-mail address. I don't subscribe to the paper so I was shunted to the special registration section for non-subscribers. The fact that I often buy the paper out of the newstand doesn't count. So once there I ask myself why does The Bee want my physical address? Why a first and last name? My phone number, are you kidding? Birth year and gender?

What I can’t figure out is why so many of these newspapers require this kind of information to take part. Many of the gardening sections of many major newspapers require information you just are not going to supply. I notice that there are almost never any comments, so I must not be the only one who doesn’t register.

The newspapers are facing incredible pressure from the internet so they put up an online presence, yet make it hard for people to take part by requiring them to provide information no one is going to provide. You just know that soon as you give them your address they will start sending you subscription requests for the print issue. Why else would they want my address?

We like reading the Saturday Bee and enjoy the garden articles they print. If they want people to participate in the online presence they need to drop the requirement that we provide anything other than a name, e-mail, and password.

Maybe the papers don’t want us to participate?

Blue carnations and peat moss.

A couple of items to ponder. According to Branch-Smith Publishing Selecta Klemm, a breeder and propagator of vegetative plants based in Stuttgart, Germany, formed a joint venture with Mendel Biotechnology, a functional genomics company in Hayward, Calif., to develop and market transgenic ornamentals. The new entity, Ornamental Bio Resource, combines Mendel's expertise in drought, cold/freeze tolerance, disease resistance and flower stability traits with Selecta's experience in plant transformation technology and marketing. Ornamental BioResource is working on Selecta crops, including petunias, poinsettias, New Guinea impatiens and geraniums. Selecta cooperated in developing a blue carnation with Florigene of Australia."

Then there is this story.

"Watch for a peat shortage by spring 2007". Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss Assoc., cites a "very poor" harvest in eastern Canada because of an "exceptionally wet summer" and an average harvest in western Canada. "As of Aug. 31, only 66% of this year's requirements have been harvested in Canada. Reducing the daily harvest also increases the cost per bale."

I don't know what to say about the blue carnation. I know blue camellias have been worked on, but none developed. What's next?

The peat moss shortage will impact soil conditioners and potting mixes that have peat as an ingredient. So even if you don't use peat by itself, it is a component in so many soil less mixes that the price of those products is bound to go up as the scarcity of the peat works it way through the system.

A tree can save us money?

Project EverGreen a national campaign promoting the benefits of landscapes, conducted a survey this spring. Some 90% of respondents said landscaping is important to improving a home's value at sale time and 70% agreed that green spaces and parks improve property values.

So the consumer is well aware of the importance of landscaping in increasing property values.

However, 70% disagreed, did not know or had no opinion that improving landscapes can reduce energy costs. 55% disagreed, didn't know or had no opinion that trees shading homes can reduce attic temps by as much as 40 degrees.

You would gather from the survey that most people are aware of landscaping increasing property values, but no idea that landscaping can reduce energy costs. I am not sure what to make of this other than what we have discussed in past posts.

The average consumer is so wrapped up in increasing the value of the home that it becomes the main motivation for landscaping. That’s why all the homes have the same boring yards in the new subdivisions. Don’t want to stand out as that might decrease the value of the home in relation to all the other homes on the block.

It also shows just how disconnected people are to the natural world. You would be surprised how many people ask for “evergreen trees” so they don’t have to clean up the leaves. When we mention a deciduous tree would be better, shade in summer and letting light in during winter, they are appreciative as they hadn’t thought about that. Besides some evergreen trees drop leaves all year.

Maybe with housing prices dropping many folks will realise that a home is primarily a place to live, and not just an investment. Perhaps then they will think more about landscaping for beauty and energy conservation, and not just to increase the houses value, which I think leads to the “homogenized gardening” we are seeing.

What Does "Family Run" Mean?

Over at Garden Rant they have a poll going on. It’s about your shopping preferences, big box, independents, or a little of both. I want to look at the results after a few days and everyone has had a chance to vote.

Scrolling down the comments we see our friend M Sinclair Stevens comment mentioning that the only place that had tomatoes available this time of year was Home Depot. Part of the comment was “The Home Depot tomato was from a southern grower in Alabama, a family-run place according to their website Bonnie Plants.com. I've never heard of them before but I'm interested in learning more about them since they are family-owned and grow vegetables for southern gardens.”

Bonnie plants are owned by Alabama Farmers Cooperative, Inc. According to FundingUniverse.com“AFC's next major acquisition came in 1975 when the co-op acquired Union Springs, Alabama-based Bonnie Plant Farm. The business was started in 1918 by Livingston and Bonnie Paulk in Bullock County, Alabama.” It continues, “After AFC bought Bonnie in 1975, Paulk family members, like the Andersons, stayed on to run the business. With AFC's support, Bonnie began to expand rapidly, adding trucks and building new greenhouses to serve an ever-growing market. By 1983 Bonnie marketed to 13 states and annual sales reached $9 million. Expansion was fueled even further by the rising popularity of garden centers by mass market retailers. Bonnie built up its sales staff, constructed more greenhouses, and as a result was well positioned to enjoy great success in the 1990s. In 2000 Bonnie would take in more than $42 million in revenues. As was the case with the Anderson family, one of the Paulks would eventually rise to the top at AFC. In 1996, Tommy Paulk, grandson of Bonnie's founders, became AFC's CEO, the fourth in the co-op's history.”

Some of the family members have stayed on to help run the business, but this is not the small family run business that Livingstone and Bonnie started in 1918. $42 million in revenues places it in the large size wholesale operation. The main fuel for their growth was in the Box Stores.

I don’t know much about Bonnie other than what M. Sinclair Stevens and FundingUniverse.com have to say. They must be a well run company with good plants to have gotten as far as they have. I guess it’s a matter of what a family run business means? Ford Motor Co. could be considered a family run business since the President of the company is a Ford, or Scotts-Miracle-gro being run by member of the family could be called "family run'. I think most of us have a view of what a family run business is in our own minds. Does Bonnie meet those criteria? What does “family run” mean to you? Does it even make a difference in your shopping habits? What do you picture when you hear "family run"?

How did you find out about us?

One of the things we love to find out is how new visitors find our garden center. I will usually ask, if I know they are new to our center. “How did you find out about us?” We hear “a friend told me”, “I saw your website”, or “I was just driving by”. It helps us see what works in our advertising and what isn’t.

You can also find out how people come to you web page or blog. I use 103bees.com. It will tell you the search terms people used to end up at your site. I thought it was interesting how people found their way to our blog. Here are some of the search terms used.

These are the ones where we come up first or second in Google:

world trey center

"gecko" "species" "california"

golden gecko's tail

garden nurseries in the sacramento area that carry the encore azaleas

needle nellies 2006

nursery jargon

basics of running a garden center

monica vierria

wal trey center

This is my favorite since it involves our Aussie friend Stuarts home town,

what does busselton have to attract people

Here are some others that we show up on the first page of Google,

california nurseryman

nurseryman job

pasquesi's home and garden

hines nurseries selling

golden gecko

long tailed gecko

pasquesi home and garden + lake bluff + hours

We have talked about The Long Tail in past posts. We also talked about how I feel the nursery consultants have it all wrong. They think blogs have no relevance for garden centers. Pasquesi’s Home and Garden, which is located in Illinois, might have a different take when our site pops up the seventh entry below their web page. I have never been to Pasquesi’s and I live in California. What about Hines nurseries selling, where our blog pops up on the same page that Hines is on? The one search for Encore azaleas in Scaramento is great. We don’t even carry Encore azaleas and we are listed first!

Some entries are mis-spellings like world trey center. Some are interested in Geckos. I guess the lesson is don’t be surprised how people find you, and it could be in a way that you would never have thought of. Oh, and I don’t know what the hours are for Pasquesi’s Home and Garden, and Busselton? I am trying to get someone to fly me there so I can give a responsible answer. Stuart?

Where is the growth coming from?

According to Green Profit Magazine, a nursery trade journal, Scotts Corporations growth was broken down this way. “At their largest retail accounts, straight lawn fertilizer had a 28% increase on a year-to-date basis, with garden soils seeing a 24% increase. Plus, they say that the launch of Miracle-Gro Liquid Feed has seen year-to-date sales of more than $35 million, making it the most successful new product launch in the company’s history.” Green Profit continues, “The other place Scotts saw a lot of growth was in the do-it-for-me sector, the Scotts Lawn Service. That had a 26% sales growth.” Here is what I find interesting, according to the article, “What isn’t growing? The company’s Smith & Hawken sales were flat compared to last year.”

We have talked about how Scott’s wants to enter the“gourmet” garden market with its high end fertilizers. I had been thinking that what Scotts needed to do was spin off a company that used separate packaging to separate it from typical Scotts or Miracle-Gro packaging. Now we see Scotts having a tough time with Smith & Hawken, not quite a spin off but close. You have to wonder if its corporate culture that is the problem.

More than ever it becomes clear that you can’t please everyone all the time. You have to pick the audience that you are best at serving and focus on them. Scotts has built its fortune on middle of the road products almost exclusively run through chain and box stores catering to the 70% of gardening customers that shop the chains. Trying to reach out to a different set of consumers may or may not work. You loose focus, and you company wasn’t built on that anyway. Smith & Hawken could just be experiencing a slow year. My goodness we all have, but it will be interesting to watch and see if Scott’s can pull it off.

I don’t think Scotts will be successful. They, like so many other large corporations that have saturated the market with their products are now looking into the little hidden away areas of gardening, as far as they were concerned. Now there is interest in the organic market, and the “gourmet” independent nursery market. The problem is this smaller market generally hasn’t responded to Scotts offerings before. Why would they now?

Living The Stylish Life in Minneapolis–St. Paul

This story from The Minneapolis–St. Paul Star Tribune was bound to happen. Apparently too many people have been taking Susie Coelho’s advice and living “the way Californians live.” The outdoor fire pit has grown so much in popularity that people are using it all night and the smoke is bothering the un-stylish neighbors. According to the paper “Complaints about smoke seeping into people's houses through open windows have wafted into city halls and fire departments. Some say neighbors are having fires too often or are burning materials they shouldn't, creating too much smoke."

Give these people a break. They are just doing what the self described “most prominent, lifestyle expert(s) in the country, in terms of outdoor living” told them to do. Remember what Susie said “Across the country, Americans have to get used to the way Californians live. It’s not just that we live outside all the time. A lot of times, we will bring things in.” (like the smoke, we call it smog). “If you want to live that stylish life, it takes a little effort.”

So quit complaining, close the widows, and start living the “stylish life”.