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Should you guarantee it?

Check out this interesting discussion on Garden Rant about plant guarantees. What kind of guarantee does your store offer? Have you changed your policy recently?

-- Sarah

Achla Designs joins forces with Koko Co.

Achla Designs has joined forces with Koko Co. to sell its line of indoor/outdoor floor mats to garden retailers.

The mats are made of custom-dyed polyurethane straws and can be hosed down for easy cleanup. They’re available in a variety of sizes, colors and patterns. You can see them for yourself at AmericasMart in July and other fall gift shows. Mats are in-stock for immediate delivery.

Achla Designs and Koko Co. are currently working on designs and colors for 2009.

--Sarah

I spy a case of product espionage

A camera flash caused me to look up from the booth I was manning at the National Hardware Show in Las Vegas yesterday. A couple scurried down the aisle The man appeared to be attempting to hide something in his shoulder bag.

“Umm, I think those people just took a picture of your booth,” I told the fellow who was in charge of the booth next to mine. It’s a company that distributes all kinds of goods for outdoor cooking.

“Hey you!” the booth owner shouted. “What are you taking a picture of?”

Within seconds, the middle-age couple had rounded the corner and disappeared into the crowd. Another, younger man in the next-door booth gave chase while a merchant across the aisle called show security on his cell.

I’d heard about such intellectual theft taking place at industry trade shows and markets, but this was the first time I had seen it firsthand.

Another merchant on our row said it’s not at all uncommon for secret photos to be taken at trade shows so unscrupulous manufacturers can copy the product designs and have them manufactured overseas. In fact, she said, one time she brought a prototype of a fire pit to a show, only to see the exact design be manufactured offshore and appear at the next market – even before she could get the fire pit manufactured through traditional channels.

The last I saw, a show official had escorted the photographing couple to the lobby, where she was sternly telling them, through an interpreter, that they are not allowed to take photos of merchandise in booths without the permission of the booth owner. The man who shot the photo was reluctantly deleting photos from his digital cameral.

-- Kevin

New moms get the gift of fresh air

New moms at NYU Langone Medical Center will receive a peace lily plant today, courtesy of Florida grower Costa Farms and the nonprofit organization Earth Day New York. The plants are being touted as natural air purifiers, helping to protect a newborn’s lungs.

“This gift of fresh air launches the beginning of the ‘O2 for You’ public service campaign,” said Jose Smith, Costa Farms CEO. “We want people to understand the health benefits of indoor plants just as they do with blueberries and antioxidants. Research shows plants can help you live a healthier life.”

According to a NASA study, indoor plants remove up to 87% of dangerous volatile chemicals every 24 hours.

As the mother of a 5-week-old I’ve got one question: Do they rid the house of icky diaper odor, too?

-- Sarah

Warming trend shifts hardiness zones

Dueling maps have gardeners questioning plant hardiness zones, USA Today reported. A growing number of experts said that because of the warming climate, the 1990 USDA map doesn't reflect a gradual shift northward of growing zones for many plants. A map published in 2006 by the Arbor Day Foundation shows marked movement of zones.

-- Sarah

Lawn and garden sales up 3% in 2007

Sales of lawn and garden products totaled $35.102 billion last year, according to the 2007 National Gardening Survey. Sales increased 3%, or $1.025 billion more than the $34.077 billion consumers spent in 2006.

“That’s good news because it’s the first year we have seen overall retail lawn and garden sales increase since 2002,” said Mike Metallo, National Gardening Association president. Do-it-yourself lawn and garden activities that saw the biggest increase in spending in 2007 included lawn care, vegetable gardening, ornamental gardening and herb gardening.

--Sarah

Racy plant ads raise gardeners’ eyebrows

I was browsing some of the consumer gardening blogs when I came across a couple discussions about Pack Trials as seen from consumers’ points of view. The growers’ marketing efforts struck a false note for them. They saw the campaigns as an effort of bringing in non gardeners who will treat plants as particularly long lasting bouquets. They worried that this meant that garden retailers would push aside traditional gardeners so they can get more money from a broader audience.

How valid are these concerns? Some retail campaigns are aimed at garden decorators, as Gardening Gone Wild’s Saxon Holt called them on his blog. These are the customers we target with overflowing, big impact container gardens. Those plants will be replaced at season’s end with the next crop of abundant, luxurious color.

And it’s true that our industry yearns to bring in new garden buyers. How do we convert suburbanites who equate gardening with weekly mowing to true gardening? Do we dumb down gardening? Or do we try to develop more advanced gardening skills?

So, are true gardeners sidelined in our efforts to reach new and younger gardeners?

Urban Outfitters’ garden store opens

Terrain at Styer’s, Urban Outfitters’ first garden retail venue, opened for business last week, taking over the former J. Franklin Styer Nursery in Concordville, Pa. The store has 3,000 sq. ft. of plants under glass, 8,000 sq. ft. devoted to home decor, 3 acres of gardens and a 1,000 sq. ft. greenhouse cafe. Urban Outfitters is the company behind the hip clothing stores Free People and Anthropologie.

-- Sarah

Update: More photos and impressions of the new Terrain store can be found on the design blog "Oh Joy!" Click here and here for details.

Garden Center product survey closing soon

The Garden Center Product Survey from Garden Center Magazine will be closing soon. If you are a garden retailer and have not taken it yet, you are invited to participate. The results will be published in the August issue.

Click here to take the survey.

-- Carol

To higher standards …

I’m old school, I’ll admit. I would admit it with pride were I not wary of the consequences. These days, “old school” is the rough equivalent of “barbaric” in the minds of many “new schoolers.” To wit, consider the following true story:

As my sons grew up in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, I would always coach their youth baseball teams. Generally loudly. I was animated, passionate, competitive within reason, and demanding within reason. I set the bar high because I remembered how I gained every time any of my mentors set the bar high. For more than a decade, that was how Coach Y rolled.

Fast forward 20-something years, when a friend with an 8-year-old recently asked if I might want to help him work with his son’s “coach-pitch” youth team. Remembering how much I enjoyed the first run, I told him I would be honored to join the staff. And I was …

Until one batter into the first game. That’s how long it took for me to realize I had become a dinosaur. During that first batter’s first time to the plate, he was tossed the allotted seven pitches. He swung at none. The umpire called him out and pointed him to the dugout. He went — and was enthusiastically embraced by virtually every member of the home team crowd. “Good job, Ace,” was the refrain from more than one onlooker. “You’ll get ‘em next time,” said a few others.

Timeout!

With all due respect to this collection of members of Generation X, Ace did Xactly nothing for which to be applauded. Taking seven pitches is not a “good job.” And the odds of him “getting ‘em next time” were largely predicated on the notion that he would at least have TO TRY to get ‘em at some time. After the inning, I went to the dugout and asked the kid. “Do you want to get a hit?” He nodded. “Then,” I said, “you have to swing the bat, It kind of works that way. You swing the bat. The bat hits the ball. You run to first. Everybody cheers, and all the girls like you. Do you understand what I’m saying?” Again, he nods — and adds, “but I hate girls.”

“Then, next time pretend that ball is a girl,” I told him. He said he would — then, keeping his word during his next at bat, he took a healthy cut at the first pitch and whacked it past the shortstop, all the way to a left fielder more intent on chasing butterflies than stopping a swiftly moving ground ball. For those keeping score at home, our leadoff batter’s FHE (first hit ever) was a double. I predict it will also be the FOM (first of many).

I write all this not to boast about my ability to cultivate 8-year-olds into Hall of Famers. The truth is it was probably more luck than skill that his bat even hit the ball. No matter. Now, the kid thinks he’s a hitter — all because the bar got raised just a little. He got a hit all right — but only because he finally decided to swing the bat.

I’m sure there are some nifty Web sites I could cite to reinforce this point. But, as I said at the top, I’m old school. And, by the way, I’m proud of that.

-- Yale