House and Senate leaders have assembled a package of small-business tax breaks that should ease passage of the, CNNMoney reported. The tax breaks would total about $4.8 billion.
The legislation package has been added to an Iraq war funding bill that President Bush has vowed to veto because it calls for troop withdrawals by next March. If defeated, the bill could be attached to other legislation or sent as a standalone bill.
-- Sarah
TerraCycle, a company selling vermicompost in recycled soda and milk containers, is being sued by Scotts Miracle-Gro for false advertising and trade dress infringement, Advertising Age reported. (Free registration required.)
TerraCycle has launched a Web site, SuedbyScotts.com, that gives side-by-side comparisons of the companies. The site also mentions 81 other garden products that use green and yellow packaging similar to Miracle-Gro’s.
-- Sarah
How do you show the relevance of a university hort department that is typically seen as out of date and “just for farm kids”? You go green, of course.
That’s what marketing communications agency Swanson Russell Associates did as part of a collaboration with University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Department of Agronomy and Horticulture.
The department isn’t part of the main city campus at UNL, so the program remained a bit of a mystery to students on the main campus. (This despite Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee’s matriculation in a plant i.d. class as part of the ill-advised NBC reality series “Tommy Lee Goes to College” a couple of years back.)
SRA, working pro bono, formed a team with department head Mark Lagrimini to develop a communications plan for a department that went unnoticed and underappreciated.
The results are progressive, team-spirited and vibrant. With “GO GREEN” as the overarching theme, the team created posters, T-shirts, backpack tags, canvas book bags, bookmarks, Web graphics and lots more.
“Our main office is in Lincoln, as is the UNL Agronomy and Horticulture Department,” explained Jim Matya, v.p./account supervisor at the agency. “It made sense for us to join together and form this relationship.”
With a clean, contemporary design and a vibrant color palette, the Department of Agronomy and Horticulture, led by the Big Red Green Team, now is being seen for what it is – an academic leader, environmental steward and a force on the campus and in the community.
-- Kevin
Consumers are expected to spend almost $16 billion on Mother’s Day, according to a report from National Retail Federation. A good chunk of change -- $2.3 billion -- will go toward flower purchases.
Specialty stores will see the most traffic, with 37.5% of consumers heading to florists, jewelry and electronics stores. Housewares and gardening tools should also be popular, with 18.5% of consumers favoring these products.
-- Sarah
How’s business?
O.K. I guess I deserved those vicious looks because, frankly, garden centers haven’t been raking in the bucks this spring. Mother Nature has dealt an ugly hand to quite a few retailers.
My heart goes out to the folks at Apple Barn Garden Center in New Hampshire. Weather woes have left this business reeling, the Union Leader reported. Snows knocked down a shade structure soon after the store opened for the season. Cold weather and snow flurries kept customers away on Easter weekend. A few days later a swollen river flooded the store’s parking lot.
It’s not a pretty scene in North Carolina either. An Easter freeze hit growers and retailers hard and left gardeners scrambling for cover.
We dealt with unseasonably cold weather in North Texas, too. It was absolutely bizarre to see snow falling Easter weekend. I stayed home as much as possible, along with many other would-be plant purchasers.
Has your spring gotten off to a less than promising start? I am opening the floor to all who want to complain and commiserate. Vent away. Just click on the “comments” link below.
-- Sarah
Congratulations to Bucks Country Gardens, Doylestown, Pa., a finalist for the 2007 Garden Center Magazine Innovator Award, sponsored by Garden Market Expo.
The management team at Bucks has succeeded in categories that elude other retailers, such as garden furniture. In years where weather dampened sales of its regional peers, Bucks’ sales saw more than healthy growth.
Check back next week when we’ll introduce out second finalist. Look for the Innovator winner in the June issue of Garden Center Magazine.
-- Sarah
Brits’ distaste for industrially produced foods is prompting an increase in vegetable gardening, The Guardian reported.
The report cites figures from Horticultural Trades Assoc. showing a 31% increase in sales of vegetable seeds and a corresponding 32% decline in sales of flower seeds. Suttons, a mail-order gardening company, is seeing a similar trend. The company expects a 30% increase in sales of vegetable seeds this year.
-- Sarah
There are a lot of very good reasons to plant trees this Arbor Day (April 27) -- environmental issues, beautifying the community, increasing garden center sales. But I read perhaps the best reason I’ve heard yet for doing so this year.
On Tuesday afternoon, Dan Mulhall of Mulhall’s in Omaha, Neb., posted onto the ANLA (American Nursery & Landscape Association) listserv about an Arbor Day tree planting he was participating in at the University of Nebraska. Until this week, he had not decided which tree he wanted to plant. After the tragic events at Virginia Tech earlier this week, he knew the best choice would be one that honored those who died. So he will be planting a flowering dogwood (Cornus florida), the Virginia state tree.
Dan invited those in ANLA who were participating in Arbor Day festivals to plant dogwoods in memory of students and professors who died. And I’m extending Dan’s invitation to the rest of the gardening community. Here’s what Dan had to say:
“I am wondering if others would like to do that as well. If you have a connection to a campus, suggest the state tree of Virginia (or something else that will grow in your area) in memory of the students and professors lost yesterday. Let those of us… know when it’s accomplished. Let’s see how many we can get.”
I know of no better way to remember those we’ve lost than a living monument of a tree. If you plant a tree this month in honor of the Virginia Tech victims, post a comment to let us know about it.
-- Carol
Yesterday, Home Depot announced the launch of its Eco Options program, a classification and labeling system allowing customers to identify products that have less of an impact on the environment.
More than 2,500 products have been designated Eco Options, including organic plant food and vegetables in biodegradable pots.
You can read more about the program in this New York Times article. (Free registration required.)
-- Sarah
So, you want to help your customer go organic, do you? Believe it or not, there are but three steps on the path to success. So says Howard Garrett, a.k.a. The Dirt Doctor, a natural gardening specialist whose radio program can be heard in many locales across the nation. In fact, I was hearing it in mine just this weekend.
Here is his “Basic Organic Program” (please don’t blink, lest you miss it):
1. Stop using all synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and other toxic chemicals.
2. Build soil health with natural organic products and techniques.
3. Use native plants and well-adapted introductions to conserve water.
Garrett offers all manner of tips and formulas to help organic newcomers and veterans alike. He outlines those regularly in his Dirt Doctor newsletter, for which you can sign up on his Web site.
Here’s a personal favorite, “How to create and apply ‘Garrett’ Juice to stave off pests”:
Mix the following per gallon of water: one cup of compost tea or liquid humate, one ounce liquid seaweed, one ounce blackstrap molasses and one ounce apple cider vinegar. To make a mild insect control product, add one ounce of citrus oil per gallon of spray. To make the fire ant killer, add two ounces of citrus oil per gallon. When spraying the foliage of plants, don’t use over two ounces of citrus oil per gallon of spray. This mixture also works as a soil detox product if you are just starting your organic program. It is also an excellent soil drench and root stimulator.
Blackstrap molasses, huh? And to think, I thought that was used strictly for measuring my time in the 100-meter dash.
-- Yale
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