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Plants - Bloomtown U.S.A.

Of all the things you do, the one thing you do well is plants. Or do you? Maybe it's time to take stock of the core product.

Whether the task is supplying plants or taking care of marketing challenges, the PW Certified program incorporates a variety of resources to create many viable options for garden centers of all sizes and locales — all in one virtual place. Another outstanding partner-based company is Pride of Place Plants. Its staff works with plant breeders worldwide to offer unique green goods to commercial growers. The company searches for plants that satisfy your customers' demands and establishes commercial growing relationships to supply the trade with new and popular plant offerings. If you prefer staying power in your vendors, consider that Sherman Nursery has been growing and supplying retail customers with quality bareroot and container nursery stock for more than 120 years.

That's a tad longer than we've been doing this virtual shopping e-mail thing, which can be a great way for our garden-center-operator readers to exchange their thoughts on the topics of the day. How do you do that? Simply click here to go to our blog, and then expound to your heart's delight. But first, be sure to check out all the other features on this page.

Pet products - the Dog Days of summer

There is a movement afoot — or, perhaps more specifically, apaw — whereby garden centers are venturing into the growing pet supply market. It makes sense — garden centers are evolving into "Home" centers, and pets play a vital role in many homes. On any given shopping spree, your customer's "to buy" list might include plants, decoratives and pet care products.

You can make the process easy by offering all of those in one handy-dandy location. Country Mile Gardens in Township, N.J., has parlayed an eclectic product mix into 25 years of business success. (Check out the Bird Feeders, Pet Food link.) Lest you think this is just a fad, consider that a Web search of the words "pet supplies" recently yielded 116 million options, including gourmet dog treats that look so good your customers will be hard pressed not to buy them.

Bird is the word

There's an emerging development in the great outdoors: It seems our friends have fine feathers. Not only that, it seems that our friends with the fine feathers have plenty of friends themselves, people who want to make sure the winged ones are well fed/watered/housed. For you, the savvy retailer, this means a plethora of options to share with your customers, who suddenly have taken up an interest in birding and nature products — not to mention those who are grizzled veterans at things aviary.

At the recent National Lawn & Garden Show, the good folks at Home Bazaar displayed a vast and impressive array of bird houses bird feeders, some of which made my old college apartment look like a stable. (No, wait... almost any dwelling of any ilk makes my old college apartment look like a stable). No matter, Home Bazaar definitely has a site worth seeing. Ditto, the virtual world of Maple Hill Designs, which specializes in "inspired shelters for wild birds." If you simply want to be educated about birding and nature, the American Birding Association has an outstanding Web site that offers news, photos, resources and more.