So, you want to be a nurseryman, well listen now to what I say.

I find it amazing that so many of us across the country have had the same experiences in our garden centers this year. If you had decent weather you did good business this spring. If you had crummy weather, like the east coast then business was not so good. Besides the weather, which is always the main factor in business, the areas where we did well and not so well are the same. Vegetable plants ruled this year, followed by fruit trees, and fertilizers to keep them growing. Also smaller pot's of color, 4" and jumbo packs did quite well. Statuary, one gallon and larger shrubs and trees, as well as any outdoor furniture, not so well. All in all it was a great year for those who the weather gods smiled on. After the dismal Christmas season I didn't know what to expect. There was nothing but doom and gloom in the retail sector. With the first sales of bare root fruit trees we could see that things had changed, and edibles were going to be in. This carried on right through the vegetable planting season, and now we are selling organic fertilizers and pest controls to keep those gardens humming. I don't know what the future holds. I would suspect that sales should be good for pre-booking fruit trees this fall. I would guess that the Christmas season will be slow for us, as we really  don't have much of an indoor space. I think the Christmas sales season has changed, with people choosing to spend much less on gifts. It actually makes me glad we never really "got into" Christmas as far as nursery sales go. I think a lot of retail garden centers this year will find smaller gifts selling better than high ticket items. People want to celebrate, just not so expensively. Great opportunity to sell an, "old fashioned Christmas" this year. Quality tools for the new vegetable gardener, simple wind chimes, and even gift certificates (if the customer base believes you'll be around next year.) I wonder what happen's to any Smith and Hawken gift certificates out there?

As far as next year goes, I believe we will see a continuation of the great sales of edible plants. I expect fruit trees and vegetable sales to carry the day, weather permitting. What with the recent late blight scare, and the realization that it was box store exasperated, the smaller retail garden center that has made a connection with the neighborhood should fare well. The main grower for the box stores has also decided not to grow heirloom tomatoes next year. Another great opportunity for the independent nursery to advertise greater choice.

We should start to see an uptick in people opening or interested in opening a garden center. It's now a trendy thing, and that's OK. People can see what businesses did OK during these times, and what businesses actually add value to the community. I am certainly receiving lot's of e-mails from people interested in opening a nursery. Of course being interested and actually doing it are different things, but never the less being a nursery person is once again fashionable. That of course can be a problem, because like gardening, it can be a serious business. Are people really willing to put in the time and effort that is required to be successful?

One wonders how many people who planted a tomato in a Topsy-Turvy will do that again? I can't think of any one item this year that so perfectly expresses peoples excitement about gardening, and yet tells of their utter lack of knowledge about gardening. This things just don't work out here where summer time heat gets in the 90's and 100 degree F range. They dry out much too quickly,yet I have many customers who bought them (not from us). People still love the idea of a gimmick, whether it works or not. What other gimmicks will be peddled next year to anxious, amateur gardeners? I'll tell you right now we don't sell gimmicks here, and no matter how much people plead there will be no Topsy-turvys sold here.

I am quite excited about the possibilities for us in this economic climate. Smaller is better, local is better, and we are about a small and local as you can get. My 25 years plus in the business is paying off as people are looking for information and advice. Sure the internet is great for research, but knowing someone local who has the advice for local gardening is invaluable. Sometimes just wading through all the info available on the internet makes one pine for the friendly nursery person, who can pin point the information you need now. Yes, I do beleive we are seeing a Renaissance in smaller, locally owned nurseries and garden centers. It's hard work, long hours, and year after year of routine, but for those wishing to pursue a career in this field, I can not think of a better time in the last 25 years to do it.

Late blight, the box stores, and you.

The recent late blight problem has huge implications for the garden center business, and home gardening. The idea that one supplier can produce all the vegetable starts for all the major box stores is a bit scary. When things go wrong, as they did in this instance, it can affect millions of people. Of course the box stores have gouged and "pay at scanned" all the other players out of business. So we end up with a few, very large suppliers that can deal with the box stores. The choices of where they can get their plants are shrinking. Because of the late blight Bonnie plants has said they will not grow heirloom tomatoes nest year. You choice of vegetable varieties just shrank, if you shop at the box stores. Web sites should be used for getting information out to the customer. I checked out the web pages for the box stores, and I could not find any mention in their garden pages about the blight. Bonnie plants, where much of the infection occurred just changed a section in their web site this last week to address, "brown spots and yellowing leaves." The link takes you to a Teaxa A&M "Tomato problem solver".  No mention of their part in this mess. A huge opportunity to let the gardening public know what Bonnie did, and what it intends to do about this serious problem in the future. Why don't the box stores want to help their customers solve this problem, that was likely spread through their stores? Where are the press releases?

The New York Times article quoted a  John Mishanec, a pest management specialist at Cornell ,  who said, "agricultural pathogens can easily spread when plants are distributed regionally and sold by big-box retailers. Farms are inspected, greenhouses are inspected, he said, but garden centers aren't, and the people who work there aren't trained to spot disease." Now is he talking about box store garden center employees? If the box store garden center employees are not trained to spot disease, what are they trained to do? Makes you wonder what they would tell you when you bring that little plastic bag in with your problems inside.

I think this whole affair proves that box stores work at reducing the choices for the customer. Less choice means fewer suppliers to deal with. Few suppliers that become bigger, and bigger, and find that less choice (no heirlooms next year), means fewer problems. Of course when something does go wrong, it goes wrong in a big way. A huge potential for smaller garden centers to fill a niche. More choice, expert advice, smaller locally owned business, with numerous smaller suppliers.

So now its news?

We have been talking about the Late Blight attacking tomatoes on the East Coast for a week now. I received a comment from Marie at 66 Square Feet. She say's, "Have you seen this article, Trey? I wanted to leave a comment to the effect that I read about it here, first, but comments are no longer being accepted." The article is in The NewYork Times, and low and behold it's about the tomato blight. Then I head over to Garden Rant and low and behold it's now news there, too.   The newspaper of record once again shows why newsprint is sinking fast. They just don't get the news to you when you really need it. Plus, I love this correction at the bottom of the article. " An earlier version of this article included Gramoxone in a list of fungicides. It is in fact a herbicide." Ooops! Fungicide, herbicide, whatever!

I am proud that we got this news out a week before it became "news". While I don't have the largest audience around, the audience I do have is made up of the most thoughtful people.

The bottom line is, gardening can be a serious business. When you really need the news, large newspapers are not the place to go. One week can make a huge difference when it comes to disease on our food crops. The future of garden news reporting is niche blogs, that focus on different aspects of gardening. Find those blog's, bookmark them, and just buy the Sunday edition of The Times!

Home vegetable and fruit gardening can be serious business

Something we can expect with the increase of home vegetable gardening, is an increase in frustrated gardeners. Even experts have problems with their vegetable gardening. My friend, farmer Fred Hoffman found out he had Tomato late blight on his 'Giant Belgium' Tomato. His blog post has a great synopsis of the problem facing anybody staring down this disease. Since we are so dry here in the summer, the typical high humidity associated with the problem is not prevalent. He eventually traces the problem to..., well read his post to find out. As more, and more people attempt to grow more of their food, they are going to find out something our industry has been doing it's best hide. Gardening is hard work, punctuated with disaster. The industry in the past was simply trying to encourage more people to jump into gardening by making it seem all so simple. Install a large screen TV next to the outdoor grill, toss some throw pillows around, and don't forget to leave the gate unlocked for the garden maintenance crew. My, how things have changed in just a couple of years.

Imagine all the people starting vegetable gardens this year? Do you think most of them grow everything they eat? Not necessary, as we can always fall back on store bought if something goes wrong. Tomato blight? A bummer, but not life threatening. Of course, when problems in commercial fields show up it becomes even more serious. We can always count on food being at the grocery store, right?

So we have legions of families growing their own this year. Do they make sure to visit the garden every day to check on diseases and pests? Even when the temperatures are in the 100degreeF range? Do they perform weed control on a regular basis? How many people know the pH of their soil? How about nutrient deficiencies in the neighborhood? Do they have an expert in the wings to consult? How many have ever been to a real nursery, and talked to a real nursery person? How many are willing to stick to their "organic guns" when blight attacks, and their food supply is in peril?

Horticultural knowledge by the average person is much less these days, than when families actually had to grow their own for survival.  If your survival depended of what you grew, could you do it? Back in Grandpa and Grandmas time, or maybe earlier,  people we're well acquainted with their soil. They might not have known the science, but they knew you had to "sweeten" the soil with lime for the best results. They knew that in August, when most people are still harvesting the summer crops, was the time to start seed of the fall and winter crops. Get that broccoli seed planted too early or late, and there was no broccoli for fall and winter dishes. It could affect how skinny the family ended up by spring!

Puttering around the flower beds is not serious stuff. Important yes, but serious, no. Vegetable and fruit gardening to supplement or provide your food is a serious business. That's why towns use to have nurseries or feed stores that provided the knowledge, as well as the goods. There was the man or woman there that you could trust, since often the food you grew might be bartered with that very nursery later on. You both had a stake in your success. Now try and think about where you would go right now if you needed some advice that could affect what you eat this year, and next. The Internet? Home Depot? Wall Mart? Smith and Hawken?

After all these years of supplying people with plants for fun, it's a bit different to be supplying them with plants and goods that "just have to produce!" Makes guys like me and Farmer Fred realize just how important our jobs are. And just how far we have to go to re-educate the population in self-sufficiency. We are a couple of generations behind. Lot's to do.

What's a tomato problem on the East Coast got to do with me?

You might wonder how tomato blight on the East Coast will affect your gardening practices? According to The TimesUnion.com Bonnie plants, the wholesale nursery where the blight was first found, has decided that next year, "the company will reduce the risk of blight attacking its plants by shipping only hybrid tomato seedlings, rather than heirloom tomato seedlings..." Yes, If you shop at one of the box stores that carry Bonnie Plants (they all do) your varietal selection was just reduced to hybrids. Can't blame the company for wanting to do this, but if you like Heirloom tomatoes you had better shop somewhere else (hey nursery owners, did you just hear that? Huge opportunity next year). According to The Gloucester Daily Times, to combat these types of problems "Bonnie Plants sprays seedlings before shipping them to stores, but that doesn't happen after the plants arrive." What are they sprying with? Bonnie advertises they are "going greener". I don't think the adevertise being organic? Never the less it would be prudent of the company to tell us what it is they are spraying the vegetable starts with. I don't have a problem with this, but some people may.

I think these questions should be addressed by Bonnie, and their customers (the box stores) on their web sites. Why no mention of this, or what to do about it? It would help dispel rumors, which can sometimes be more damaging than the original problem.

On being too big

I believe the recent Late Blight scare on the East Coast has far greater implications than most of us realize. While no one is saying that Bonnie Plants did anything wrong, the fact is their nursery shipped tomatoes infected with the blight. It may have originated in the greenhouses, or after the plants left the greenhouses, it doesn't matter. Potentially thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people and their gardens could be affected. Bonnie appears to have done the right thing in alerting authorities, and pulling plants from the shelves. The wet weather in the North East has certainly worsened things, providing the right conditions for the spread of the disease. Yet, unlike many regional problems that occur from weather or insects, this could have been a man made or exacerbated problem. This year, more than ever people planted what might be called "Victory Gardens". For some it's a pursuit of pleasure, for others a necessity. Either way we are growing food to eat, and without success some won't eat as well. Imagine planting your tomato crop, only to have to pull it too late to replant. That's what's going on. In addition the disease has spread from home gardens to some commercial farms. This could have far reaching implications on peoples ability to buy locally produced, safe food.

Bonnie is a company with an interesting history, and a good track record, or they wouldn't have grown to become the main supplier of vegetables to the box stores. This Late Blight concern is not so much a story about Bonnie, but rather what happens when we depend on one supplier for hundreds of stores. When something goes wrong, it goes wrong in a big way. Any grower could find themselves in this situation. We have a grower near here that was suspected of having infected tomatoes, and was told not to ship any tomatoes until the problem was solved. This was quite scary as we we're in the middle of the tomato selling season, and could affect how our business did this year. Fortunately we have other local suppliers, so we went to them while the problem was worked out. Turns out it was a false alarm. At least we had other growers to fall back on.

The Box stores, due to their shear size have come to depend on suppliers that have the resources to supply them. What with the recent bankruptcy of Hines nursery, Bordiers nursery, and others, the choices of  who they can do business with shrinks. So now we have just a few suppliers, providing much of greenery for a huge chunk of the gardening market. What happens if something gets into the production chain and is spread all through the country? Potentially you could have a serious impact on the homeowners ability to supply food for the family.

These kinds of issues are why it's important for us to stay smaller, with more local producers who can cover some of the shortages if they occur.  Any other year is might be seen as an inconvenience to be without tomatoes for the season, but with food shortages showing up, and the public's desire to grow their own, it's more than an inconvenience. It could affect how, and what we eat this year or next.

Tomato late blight, where are the press releases?

It seems to me that this would or should be a bigger story? Bonnie Growers,  supplier of vegetable plants for most of the box and chain stores across the country send out infected plants to millions of people. Yet, at least in the blogging world I have heard hardly a peep. Is this story somehow under the radar, or am I just making too much out if this? I checked out Bonnies web site, nothing. Home depot, nothing. Lowes, nothing. Wal-mart, nothing. If we knew we had sent out tomatoes plants that we're infected we would be freaking out. Late blight can cause the tomato plants to die. Thousands of people who bought tomatoes at one of these stores could have infected plants. The disease has also spread from these home gardens to commercial fields.

I can only imagine how my customers, who have waited all winter and spring to plant their tomatoes, would feel if they had to pull them up. I would hear no end of it, and rightly so. One of my local suppliers had to stop shipping their tomatoes, right in the middle of the season, because of suspected problems (they we're cleared).

Think of the implications of depending on one grower for all you vegetable needs. When something goes wrong it can affect many people. Bonnie say's they didn't send out infected plants on purpose. It was a terrible mistake, yet why no mention of this at the companies web site. Shouldn't all of these companies be warning their customers of this potential problem?

Are their any bloggers on the east coast that have had to deal with this? I heard it could be in Ohio, too? As far as the companies mentioned above, why no mention in your web sites? Shouldn't the gardening public be warned about this?

Tomato plants pulled from Home Depot, Lowe's, and Walmart

According to Home Channel News, "Home gardeners may end their tomato-growing season a little early this year, as a deadly pathogen that attacks tomato plants has been found in retail nurseries from Maine to the Carolinas. Home Depot, Lowe's, and Wal-Mart have removed tomato plants from their shelves in several northeastern states, although many consumers may already have infected plants growing in their backyards." The poor people who wanted to grow their own this year may be without tomatoes. Bonnie Plants, the number one supplier of vegetables plants to the chain stores has found it's stock affected with "Late Blight". According to the article, "'late blight,' the pathogen is not a new disease, according to Meg McGrath, professor of plant pathology at Cornell University. The Irish potato famine of the 1840s was blamed on the same fungal infection."

According to Dennis Thomas, general manager of Bonnie Plants, "'You can't blame any one vendor,' Thomas said. This pathogen has been around forever. Other 'host' plants that carry the same pathogen -- and can spread it to tomatoes -- include potatoes, celery, petunias and a weed called bittersweet nightshade."

According to Home channel News, "as a precaution, Bonnie Plants has removed all tomato plants from Home Depot, Lowe's, Wal-Mart and K-mart stores in New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Maine. The grower operates on a consignment, or pay-by-scan arrangement with its big-box customers, so the company is responsible for the merchandise until it is sold."

Dennis is right, it could happen to anyone. This is one reason why locally produced vegetable plants are a better choice. With larger operations like Bonnie, when something goes wrong, it goes wrong in a big way. Think of all the problems we have been having with food safety, and how many people it affects when material has been shipped around the country, and some pathogen shows up. Bonnie Plants did the right thing by calling in state inspectors and dealing with the problem head on. Never the less, as companies grow ever larger, the number of people they affect grows larger, too. Another reason why I believe Small is Cool.

Can Paul Hawken do it again? Lets think local.

I am amazed at how information get's around these days. The recent closing of Smith and Hawken is one example. I don't follow Smith and Hawken. Instead I am always interested in how people find my blog, or my store. I use site meter to find out what search words people have used to end up at the blog. The other day an inordinate amount of visitors we're arriving using the search words "Smith and Hawken Closing", or something along that line. This is interesting, so I check it out and low and behold I find the deal.com, and the information people will want. After years of writing about Smith and Hawken there is a cache of posts that stand out to search engines. So someone searching for info on the closing will find a post about the long downward spiral of Smith and Hawken or  Scott's not feeling the pain (written in April 2006). That post included this, "In the long run companies like Scott’s actually reduce the choices to consumers...I can’t imagine that Smith and Hawken is the same store that Paul Hawken built and then sold. You can look the same on the outside but once corporate gets a hold of it the culture changes."

I read over at Garden Rant that Paul Hawken  might be thinking about getting in the tool business again. I doubt it. The market for expensive English made tools is nil right now. Why import tools when we have the ability to build the same quality here? I think there is a great opportunity for someone to build quality gardening tools right here in the USA. I don't mean imported from China, and sold by American companies. Actually what I would love to see is tools made in northern California, or even the foothills, that are of that quality.  Will it happen? Perhaps as local becomes even more fashionable. Maybe some blacksmith in the hills will see an opportunity and start making quality garden tools. While the market for expensive imported tools is nil right now, I think people would invest in tools made locally, that last a lifetime.

What an exciting time we live in. We have watched as the largest horticultural companies have folded or sold off major parts of their business.  The industry is in turmoil, except at the local level. My fellow smaller garden center owners seem to be doing o.k. during this economic turmoil. It's as if the garden center has once again become something of a necessity, instead of a luxury. A place to gather information, quality locally produced plants, organic fertilizers to keep the investment growing, and a real person to talk to that understands the local climate and conditions. I hope the trend continues.

Smith and Hawken employees, what now?

No matter what we say about the way Smith and Hawken was run, or it's ownership by Scott's Miracle-Gro, the people who worked there are out of work. If you worked at Smith and Hawken, and enjoyed working in horticulture you might want to head over and join our group, Garden Centers, Nurseries, and New Media. It's a LinkedIn group that's made up of the best minds in the horticultural world. You can network with other like minded people, and perhaps find new opportunities in the world of horticulture. We have well over 400 members (444 as of today). Check it out here and see if it might help. Sid Raisch made a comment at my last post about the closing.  He asks, "Maybe someone who knows for sure such as former employees and suppliers to S&H will chime in, but it is possible that Scott’s was an answer to problems that began much earlier. Is it possible that the concept of premium garden tools, decorative accessories, outdoor furniture, and related products was not scalable to a national retail platform? Did competition with other catalog companies become too intense, requiring the multi-channel Catalog-Internet-Bricks & Mortar expansion? There may have been individual stores that were well-run and self-sustaining but did they generate enough margin dollars to support the expense of the product design, sourcing, corporate systems and management overhead? Did the rapid expansion,top end growth, and outside investment mask underlying problems with the S&H concept? The store within a store at independent garden centers did have some merit, but did the wholesale margins really work? Lots of questions with the answers not apparent to draw a logical conclusion. What can others learn from S&H that will help them avoid making the same mistakes?"

Smith and Hawken Closing

Looks like Smith and Hawken is on it's last legs. According to thedeal.com "The clock is ticking fast on premium gardening chain and catalog company Smith & Hawken Ltd. as it holds out in the hope of a last-minute lifeline from a new buyer that its parent company Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. won't provide." Reuter's is reporting that, Smith and Hawken "will call in the liquidators for its 56 stores unless the corporate parent of the premium gardening chain and catalog company reaches a last-minute deal with potential buyers." We have talked about Smith and Hawken, and it's decline for quite awhile here . It's sad to see such a venerable (in the past) business closing, but when Scotts Miracle-Gro bought the chain the long slide began. Maybe someone will buy the chain and save 700 jobs, but I have my doubt's.

Politics, The White House, and Gardening.

I don't like mixing politics and gardening. I have always felt that our garden center welcomes people from both sides of the aisle. As a matter of fact I would venture to say that here in the foothills of California my customers are about evenly divided between left and right. This may surprise those of you who think of California as strictly a liberal state. Here in the foothills the trend is toward the right. My county, El Dorado typically votes to the right of issues. Right next door is Sacramento County which is typically a liberal county. So my customer base is made up of lots of different folks, who just want to garden. We don't get behind political campaigns here. If you want to hang your political sign on our fence, (a very busy intersection) it might be hung right next to the opposing sides sign. I just do not want to alienate anyone from shopping at our store. People choose where to shop based on many different factors, and I want people to choose us because we are not political. Don't get me wrong, I have very strong feelings about the subject, but I am able to leave that at home. "Let the people garden" is my motto.

Reading Garden Rant today we find that The White House garden is possibly contaminated with lead.  According to Garden Rant, "after the not-surprising attacks on the organic nature of the garden from the lobby group for Big Chem, this latest attack came curiously from the left." The post continues, "It started with a story in Mother Jones claiming that the garden, with its 93 parts per million of lead, is 'contaminated', supposedly due to the composted sewage applied to the land during the Clinton years." I wonder why we are suppose to be surprised that the attack came from the left? Are all people on the left organic gardeners? Are all people on the right chemical users?

In response to these attacks Eddie Kohan, author of the blog Obama Foodoramama responded, "The other bizarre element to the whole bashing thing is that anyone who thinks the White House left a single stone unturned in planning the garden is...what's the most delicate, diplomatic, term? Oh yeah, silly. The White House was well aware that the first food garden planted on the campus since WWII was going to be big news. Of course all details were accounted for. Of course appropriate testing was conducted. The White House has the finest minds in America, experts in every field, available for consultation. It's beyond silly to imagine that the garden wasn't thoroughly 'vetted.'" Somehow the notion that The White House has "the finest minds in America, experts in every field, available for consultation", doesn't make me feel any better. I don't like the idea of all these experts "vetting" the garden. It sounds like gardening by consultation.

While the idea of The White House garden is a great one, it has been hijacked by all sorts of different special interest groups. I would like to think that The First Lady, or President could just get into the garden, and relax. Yes, the garden is politically symbolic, and of course that's the problem. I have written about other politically symbolic gardens before here.

We have to find some common ground in the country. The garden should be the place. At the nursery I will try and steer you towards organic methods, but how you garden is up to you. As long as your pesticides, or fertilizers don't drift off your property, that little patch of land is yours to experiment in. That's the wonderful freedom we celebrate today.

Have a great Independence Day!

Social media and the garden center

When I started this blog over 5 years ago there we're not many garden bloggers out there.  People would ask why I was taking the time to post about my nursery, when the only people who we're reading it often lived hundreds or thousands of miles away. I knew that over time, more and more people that lived closer to my nursery would be on the internet, and reading blogs. So it's with great joy that I see all the years of patiently typing away starting to really pay off. Having been on the Internet, with my own blog over these years, I have carved out a niche for myself. Now local people who Google garden center in El Dorado County, or northern California, or even California, see my blog pop up on the first page. The point is that even on the internet, things do take time. Sometimes years for results to bear fruit. We have a local garden expert, Farmer Fred Hoffman, who  is a lifetime Master Gardener, and host of the KFBK Garden Show on NewsTalk 1530 KFBK in Sacramento, California each Sunday morning from 8:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. He also hosts "Get Growing" on Talk 650 KSTE in Sacramento, 10 a.m. to Noon. Fred recently started his own blog, The Farmer Fred Rant. His latest post is titled, "A nursery's biggest competitor my be a warehouse in Nevada."It is based on my post titled, "What a Spring", where I casual mention that our price for Sluggo Plus (an organic snail and earwig bait) is the same as Amazon.com. Our price is 11.99, and there's was $11.99 (I see they have lowred to $11.11 as of today). 

Like Fred say's, when you factor in the freight and time it takes to get the product, we are still less expensive or real close, even with our 8.25% sales tax! Everyone assumes that Amazon has the lowest prices for everything, and it's just not true. Fred and another commenter at my blog both say I should post the fact that we are the same price right by the product. Why not show folks that even our little rural garden center just down the road is on top of what the mega competition is doing. The timing is right for local owned business to point out these areas where we compete with the big boys, on price, or convenience, or even just "feel good" atmosphere.

What I have seen over time is garden blogging growing to the point that it's impossible to keep up with what's going on. So many blogs from all parts of the world. This is of course fun, but for the smaller locally owned garden center it's the local garden bloggers like Fred, who will be the champions of their favorite stores, and make the biggest impact for those stores. Make no doubt about it, social media is the wave of the future when it comes to "advertising". Fred is respected all around the Sacramento region, and is most likely the most widely listened to gardening expert on the radio in the Sacramento region. So for Fred to mention our little garden center, 40 miles east of Sacramento makes an impact. "Gee honey, why not take a trip to Gold Country and visit that little nursery Fred talks about".

What I like most about social media is how a business with a great reputation can enhance that reputation. We don't have to come up with expensive ad campaigns that more and more just don't pay off. Social media puts like minded people together, where the word of good business or bad, can spread throughout the group that most benefits by this information. Fred, as well as all the the people who have participated in my blog over the years, are now our best form of advertising. People love it when friends recommend a place to shop. You are more likely to trust a friends recommendation. Farmer Fred, and most all of the people who participate in my blog are friends. Some I have never met in person, but they know me and I know them, and I trust their advice.

What a spring!

This has been one of the longest periods between posts for me. We have been busy. It's starting to slow down now that school is out and vacations are here. We think that business will be better this summer than in past summers since most people are staying close to home this year. Fertilizers, pest control, and 4" color should continue to sell well thorough the summer. Where was the growth this year for us? Vegetables, fruit trees, organic fertilizers, premium potting soils, 4" perennials at $3.99 and $4.99. The 4" size has gone over really well as it's a few dollars less than a one gallon can and you don't have to dig as big a hole. Really the most excitment comes from the premium potting soils and organic fertilizers. They have been flying out of here this spring. We carry Foxfarm Ocean Forest, E.B. Stone "Ednas Best", and Natural and Organic Black Gold.

The availability lists at the wholesale level have never been so full. Rising sales are not lifing all boats. I beleive the wholesale growers of one gallon size plants, and larger, are suffering this year. It has been edibles, 4" size plants, and organics, that have carried the day. Now we have to help people keep those plants growing and healthy. We love people who bring us samples in plastic bags of insect problems or other concerns. It allows us to show case organic controls that may have not existed before. Sluggo plus is a boon for us as earwigs are a much bigger problem here than snails and slugs.  It's our first organic, pet safe, earwig control and it's selling very well (our price is the same as Amazon, $11.99).

One other big reason we have had a great year so far has been our beautiful spring, where we dodged the drought and have had temperatures in the 70's and 80's F.  The weather is always the most important variable in our sales. That's the price of working with nature. So this year we hit the weather jackpot. Other nurseries in other parts of the country may not be so weather lucky. When one thinks of all the variables at play in our business, it's a wonder we continue to do it. That's the life of farming and the farmer. We in the garden center business are farmers like those that grow alfalfa, or any other crop.

And when all is said and done this year, I hope we have opened the gardening door for some new gardeners. They will find out that not all Springs are as nice to our crops as this one. Bugs and disease will take their toll. Gardening can be hard work, but if you keep it up the rewards will unfold over time. A nation of new gardeners is exactly what the independent garden center has been wishing for.

Do smaller garden centers have an edge over upscale centers?

Sarah poses an interesting question at Open Register, "How badly does 'upscale' suffer in a tight economy?" She asks, "I wonder…in this economic environment, does the low-key, mom-and-pop garden center have an edge over more polished, upscale garden centers? Do low-cost perceptions influence where consumers buy plants? What are you seeing in your part of the world?" I think it depends on the operation. A poorly run Mom and Pop operation will suffer despite being a small Mom and Pop. A Mom and Pop operation that responds to the community, and is run properly does have a foot up in this economic climate.  That's why I couldn't for the life of me understand why Smith and Hawken would be pushing outdoor televisions at this time. A huge disconnect.

I have been promoting the small garden center for years. My goal is to stay small, and become indispensable to my customer base.  If you want a great selection of organics fertilizers and pesticides, as well as the knowledge to help you do it right the first time, we are it. Sure you can drive over twenty five minutes away for an equivelent selection, but why when we are right here? Plant prices are competitive, and gas prices are rising. Shop local.

Yes, I believe that a small, well run garden center has a foot up in this new world. The buy local, going organic, grow it ourselves, safe food movement is just what the smaller garden center has been waiting for.