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Looks great! More filling!

As the good folks at Monrovia reminded us in their April newsletter, you don't have to choose between an edible and an ornamental garden. Most fruit trees and shrubs – and aromatic herbs – are quite beautiful.

Monrovia calls this blending of styles “Farmer Chic,” and offers a few stellar examples to which you can point your customers this month as they hop aboard the edible garden bandwagon that, by now, is actually a caravan.

For example, dwarf citrus trees have rich glossy foliage, fragrant flowers and work well in a container or in an allée (which, apparently, is Farmer Chic for a walkway lined with trees and shrubs).

Meanwhile, grape vines are very easy to grow, climbing on an arbor or trellis to provide shade and an abundance of sweet grapes in late summer and fall. Blueberries are very popular and for good reason: pretty white flowers in the spring, tasty berries all summer and stunning fall foliage. Plant them close together for a delicious hedge.

Your customers can plant Canby Red Raspberry (Rubus idaeus 'Canby Red') near a fence or wall to provide support for its fruit-laden, thornless canes. And there’s always Roman Beauty Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis 'Roman Beauty'), a compact, dwarf variety with intense flavor in its small needle-like foliage.

There you have it: Plants that are good, good for you and good to look at. Or, as we Farmer Chic like to say, “good cubed.”

-- Yale

Easy Does It chosen as 2010 All-America Rose Selection

For the first time in 20 years, All-America Rose Selections has named a single winner for 2010: Easy Does It, a floribunda hybridized by Harkness New Roses of England and introduced by Weeks Roses of Wasco, Calif. The double-ruffled flowers of Easy Does It feature mango orange, peach pink and ripe apricot hues. It has a moderately fruity fragrance. The rose is disease resistant and easy to maintain.

-- Sarah

3 flowers garner 2010 AAS honors

All-America Selections announced 3 award winning flowers for 2010.

‘Mesa Yellow’ gaillardia, a F1 hybrid bred by PanAmerican Seed, has a branching mounding habit reaching 18-20 inches tall. This 1st year flowering perennial is drought-tolerant and produces 3-inch bright yellow flowers. It is hardy to USDA Hardiness Zone 5.

‘Twinny Peach’ snapdragon is an AAS bedding plant award winner bred by Hem Genetics. This dwarf plant reaches 12-14 inches tall and spreads 7-8 inches. The butterfly form flowers come in a blend of pastel colors including peach, yellow and light orange.

‘Zahara Starlight Rose’ zinnia, bred by PanAmerican Seed, produces 2-inch rose and white bicolor flowers. Plants are resistant to leaf spot and mildew. They reach 12-14 inches tall and tolerate hot and dry or wet summer growing conditions. Seed will be available for all 3 from seed suppliers after May 1, 2009.

-- Dave

Plant Delights exposes dirty laundry as marketing ploy

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Tony Avent hosted GCA members this week for a tour of his botanic garden and wholesale business, Plant Delights Nursery in Raleigh. Anyone who has met Tony knows that he's rather blunt. He loves plants. He loves his business, and if you don't like his business or his prices, then he doesn't mind telling you where the closest Wal-Mart is. Although, how any plant lover could quibble about prices after touring his botanic garden is hard to imagine. But he assured us they can and do.

Add to that the covers he chooses for his mail-order business. He uses cartoons, most of which reflect the current events of the day, even if it's politics.

As you can imagine, he gets some pretty ticked-off people, who send in hate mail. Avent responds by posting all that hate mail on his Web site. Take a look at what he's received, and you'll see what he means when he says that hate mail is a true art form.

On a somewhat related note, he asks that anyone wanting a catalog send in either 10 stamps or a box of chocolates as payment. He's gotten everything from the expected box of chocolates to empty wrappers from someone who couldn't resist eating the sweets first, accompanied by a note saying that the wrappers proved the sender's intention, and can a catalog be dropped in the mail anyway?

Call these ideas gimmicks if you will, but I think they reflect a businessman who's willing to be true to himself, even if it goes against conventional retail wisdom, and customers respond warmly to that genuine (if brash) quality.

-- Carol

Is the hydrangea stream Endless?

DAYTON, Ohio -- Bailey Nurseries unveiled its latest blockbuster hydrangea during this week’s ANLA Retail Roadshow. This one’s a lacecap that will debut next spring.

Hydrangea macrophylla Twist-n-Shout produces lush flowers on both old and new growth all summer long. It was developed by Michael Dirr and owes its combination of features to its parents, Penny Mac and Lady in Red.

You can bet this introduction will pack the same marketing punch as its predecessors. “I’m still refining my media buy, but I think it will include HGTV and DIY networks, and maybe some chick stations like Lifetime and a couple of others,” said Bailey marketing manager Jonathan Pedersen.

Pedersen envisions spending $1.5 million next year on print media for Twist-n-Shout, plus $800,000 for television.

It will be sold only to independent garden centers during its first year, and all 20 Endless Summer growers are providing plants to the independent channel. Still, Pedersen encouraged retailers to pre-book orders early. “At Bailey, our pre-numbers are going fast, and I expect it to be another sellout during the pre-book stage,” he said.

The advent of another must-have hydrangea begs the question: do retailers, and the public, really need another hydrangea?

“We do have to be careful as retailers,” Dan Mulhall of Mullhall’s Nursery in Omaha, Neb., said. “Even though we can say that these new varieties that come with such sophisticated marketing actually pull their own weight, they obviously do take up space on the shelf. All of us have to be careful about the number of SKUs we have, and every time there’s something new, it does need to take the place of something else so we don’t get out of control with our inventory.”

-- Kevin

Edible plants are hot, media says

The media continues to play up the benefits of vegetable gardens and home orchards. Here’s more news from the vegetable garden front:

• Veggies take root. The Wall Street Journal
• Growing pursuit. News-Herald.com
• Seed sales soar. Knoxvillebiz.com
• Growing trend. The Boston Globe

-- Sarah

Garden centers offer sneak preview of Oprah rose

Some garden centers in California’s Bay Area received pre-release shipments of the new Legends rose, featured on the cover of O, Oprah Winfrey’s magazine. Winfrey named the rose in honor of 25 influential African-American women.

Matt Lepow, owner of Almaden Valley Nursery in San Jose, told the Mercury News he’s taking pre-orders for the plant, which is one of the largest hybrid tea roses ever created. Regan Nursery in Fremont will also carry the rose.

-- Sarah

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

Customer’s stranger danger attitude

The other night I was at a classical guitar concert. I had to slip out at one point. As I was awaiting a break between set pieces to re-enter the auditorium, the man who had organized the event asked me if I was familiar with the guitar repertoire. Not realizing who he was, I replied rather flippantly that I know three CDs worth, the three CDs I own.

Luckily, he was more amused than offended at my lacking enough interest in classical guitar to learn about pieces beyond my CDs.

I’m like this with most things in my life. The hobby stuff that others obsess over, if I don’t own it, or haven’t experienced it personally, I’m clueless. Even gardening.

I’m pretty well acquainted with the Texas-tolerating plants I’ve used over the years. But when I started in the industry, I didn’t even know that hosta was pronounced “hoss-tah” instead of “host -ah.” Hostas melt in Texas. Even after 10 years in the industry, I’m only adequate about plants outside my realm of experience.

Believe me, a lot of your customers are just like me. Just as it takes a lot of incentive to buy a CD featuring someone you don’t know, it takes a leap to try out a new plant. To you, a new plant is exciting. To your customers, it’s a risk.

And, by the way, what you consider a new plant is not the same as what your customer thinks of as a new plant. To them, it’s any plant they’ve not used before.

To them, a new plant means they don’t know how to care for it. How often should it be watered? Sun or shade? And do I have to add mysterious substances to keep it happy? It’s so much easier to reach for the same ol’, same ol’.

There are several proven ways to help these customers try out unfamiliar plants.

Demonstration gardens. One of my local garden centers has perhaps the best demonstration garden I’ve seen, even though it’s across the street from the nursery instead of attached. Weston Gardens took over a 1920s or 1930s estate garden and is slowly restoring it, using only plants it carries (which is not as common as you’d think). It’s a gorgeous garden that draws people in who want something to do in the afternoon. Even more importantly, it’s known as an unofficial test garden. I’ve heard several home gardeners say, “I wonder if this plant works here? I’ll have to go over to Weston to see what it looks like in the garden.” The plants in the garden are signed, and the care information is created by Weston staff rather than the plant supplier. Companies in California or the Carolinas don’t have to deal with what Randy Weston calls the “Texas death-ray sun.”

Employee recommendations. Many people refuse to try anything unfamiliar unless someone else has vetted it. You can’t control what recommendations your customers get from friends and family, but you can supply your own. Obvious rules should apply, like the plant actually will grow in the area. This is an important rule to remember if you have plant gurus on staff. Exciting, new varieties that need coddling are best in the “plant collectors” section, not the staff recommendations. Add photos with the recommendation, since customers will know your employees’ faces better than they do their names.

Make it fashionable. If you see plants featured in consumer magazines or even just in the photo shoot of architectural or home accent magazines, then add those magazine pages to the display. Never underestimate the desire to be fashionable.

Make them feel like they know the plant. If you have plants that you think are great for the area, but they just aren’t moving, then take the time to create a display that introduces the customer and the plant. Play up how it’s used (“The perfect sunny accent for a shady porch”), and hint at that use with how it’s displayed. If containers are involved, then have plenty of containers stocked in the display. Don’t be shy about pointing out where not to use the plant, too. If you have a local soil problem like high acidity, and it does well in that condition, then tell them so. This kind of display will require more signs, but should help move the underperforming gem.

-- Carol

The Plant Hunter’s checklist

Tim Wood travels the world in search of new plants for Spring Meadow Nursery. He also writes the blog The Plant Hunter. Today, Tim talks about characteristics that make for winning plant introductions.

Each year at the ANLA Management Clinic in Louisville, Ky., Nursery Management & Production magazine hosts its New Plant Pavilion where growers and breeders showcase their newest offerings. This year the pavilion featured 42 new plants. That's right -- 42 new plants! There seems to be no shortage of new varieties.

While at the conference I heard someone say that we have way too many new plants. In some respects I agree -- there are too many new plants. The problem is that there is no way that people, let alone nursery professionals, can digest so many new introductions, let alone grow them.

I see the same thing when I travel overseas. New plants are a dime a dozen. As I've said before, the difficulty is not finding new plants, it's finding new plants that are better and superior, and that people will want to put in their yard.

To make matters worse, in one of the clinic lectures one retail expert said that garden centers need to cut back on the number of plant varieties they offer. His point was that by offering so many choices we are overwhelming the consumer. Again, in some respects I agree. Unless a garden center has a customer base of avid gardeners and plant collectors, too many plants can make it overwhelming for casual shoppers.

So what’s the answer? In my opinion the free market will solve the problem. The best plants will rise to the top as growers, retailers and consumers vote with their pocketbooks. With this in mind, it’s very important for growers to be careful in introducing new plants or they’ll soon discover that they’ve wasted a lot of time and money.

To help me avoid making these kinds of costly mistakes, I’ve developed a checklist that reflects the plants attributes I feel are needed to be successful. Here’s my simplified checklist that I use when considering a new plant:

More color. The trend in gardening -- or more correctly yard decorating -- is color. Plants with a longer bloom season, multiples seasons of color (flowers, fruit, fall color), colorful foliage that lasts beyond the flowers, etc. are all high on my list.

Easy to grow. The majority of people do not know much about gardening. They want to plant it and enjoy it, so I look for shrubs that are dwarf or compact that require little or no pruning. I look for plants (particularly roses) that do not have to be sprayed. And I look for plants that do not require special fuss.

Lastly, I look for plants that connect with our emotions. In other words, plants that make us feel good. Everyone likes to feel good. Who can resist the sweet fragrance of a lilac or the joy evoked by a flock of brightly colored butterflies darting about a butterfly bush? Not me, and I suspect most people feel the same way. Certainly a rose connects with our emotions, but the need to spray it can negate those feelings -- so even plants that connect with our emotions must be easy to grow.

The days of breeding plants strictly for bigger flowers are long gone. Sure, big flowers are great. A dahlia has a remarkable flower, but only the rare enthusiast is willing to overlook its ugly habit and excessive need for care. Times have changed, and so must the nursery industry.

What do you think?

-- Tim Wood