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Color Corollary
| Christina Salwitz
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>> Published Date: 12/27/2012
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 Many garden centers are failing to capitalize on selling nature’s art with effective visuals, ensuring lackluster business potential. In this article, we’ll talk about color and its potential for making garden centers either REMARKABLE or standard. We’ll hear from a cross-section of horticulture industry insiders about how they see color impacting our future bottom line and how the differences between male and female perception of color have a greater impact than you might realize.
Pictured: Black and white can be a dynamic background to a bold color, like Hort Couture shows here, or consider black-and-white blooms for a standout mixed container.
What opportunities are we missing? Kelly Norris, author of “A Guide to Bearded Irises: Cultivating the Rainbow for Beginners and Enthusiasts” and manager at Rainbow Iris Farm had this to say: “As fixated as we are on color as an industry, I’m baffled that many garden centers continue to merchandise plants in lackluster, non-compelling ways. Color is compelling, whether in foliage, fruits or flowers. Making that a central part of the story is a surefire way to demonstrate passion for your plants and your clients.
“Another lost opportunity is inspiring people with the chromatic beauty of plants. People get color, but they may not know they get color. Inspire them with plants that make their jaws drop, that grab their attention and motivate them to go make art at home.”
Taking chances and standing out from the crowd can be daunting for an IGC overwhelmed with simply trying to keep up. As we all try to stake our claim in the new century for the younger market share to take with us into the future, why cater to the outdated color choices of their grandmothers? In the ‘60s and ‘70s, groovy new appliance and style options for the home revitalized home décor options. Avocado green, harvest gold and burnt orange appliances and countertops were top color options.
In this age of fast-paced culture and competition for attention, customers are besieged with media and sensory input. Generation Y or Millennials are in their early 30s and perceive retail differently than their parents and grandparents did. When they come into the nursery, they crave the sensory experience that they don’t get from all of their online experiences. Color is the first line they visually and emotionally cross when they visit.
Conversely, are we exposing their parents and grandparents to the idea that there’s a whole world of color that they may simply be walking past out of habit? One of my favorite challenges is to take an older couple on a show-and-tell around the nursery when they come in specifically for a “green spike, red geranium and alyssum combo.” They may still end up buying in their comfort zone, but they’re appreciative of an introduction to a new way of looking at the same old pot on their front porch or planting area.
“To the average consumer, a red geranium is still a red geranium even if it’s genetically improved,” says Maria Zampini, president of Upshoot LLC. “At the 2012 FarWest show, I queried a grower on his display of their new 2013 geraniums and asked ‘Why red?’ His response positively floored me. ‘Because it’s my favorite color.’
“I smiled and walked away mumbling under my breath. Really? What—no focus groups? No research? If women are the majority of buyers for household consumables, how or even were their opinions taken into consideration? Color is a key critical component to everyday consumer decisions and shouldn’t be taken lightly in today’s highly competitive market.”
Affecting the Bottom Line With Color
“Stop being afraid of it,” Kelly says. “I think sometimes we treat color like passion; we are timid about it because we think that most people aren’t really interested in anything outside the usual pastel and primary color palette that we’re mostly addicted to. And honestly, if we don’t inspire people to the possibilities, they’ll always want the pastels and primary colors, because they won’t know what else they can have. We’ve got to stop handicapping ourselves and decide to make a conscious market differentiation—IGCs must look different than their competitors and what easier way to do that than with bold strokes of color?”
What makes a blowout success of a color versus a ho-hum return on investment? Ultimately, performance is going to be a huge factor, but color draws the customer in to fall in love first. In our world where color is right up there in importance with value, service and selection, this is not to say that you need to bombard customers with too many choices. However, mixing it up yearly and refining the options adds a sophisticated level of color options. Some of the most successful buyers are sticking with a narrow field of options with a very deep supply of those selections. It puts a fat, bold show on the tables that’s ultimately more impactful than a full rainbow selection. The choices of flower and foliage colors that we dictate for this year’s horticultural fashion show are important to the bottom line.
“Metallics are really hot—gold, silver, bronze and copper colors,” notes Suzi McCoy, president of Garden Media Group. “You can pick up these colors in silver plants and in containers and other accessories. Browns and grays are really in, too, along with the happy colors of yellow, blue, orange, pink and green. Adding a punch of color can update an outdoor space quickly and cost effectively.”
Angela Treadwell Palmer, founder of Plants Nouveau, says IGCs can look outside the industry for inspiration. “Playing up the popular color combos we see at trend-setting retailers like Target, Anthropologie and Crate and Barrel would be a great start,” she adds. “Merchandise orange and blues together and pink, oranges and maroons—those are popular combos right now and consumers love being shown combos and how to put things together. Merchandise with hardgoods of the same color, too. Flora Grubb Gardens does this so well, people often buy the entire display to have the whole combo.”
She adds color blocking, or selling by color or groups of color, can create excitement in the retail store and inspire customers. “Nordstrom and The Gap do this—they sell outfits plus the accessories in that color combo as well in the same spot in the store. Merchandise plants like that and give consumers the tools they need to decorate their gardens. I feel this will be more important as we market to Gen X and Y more. Make it easy to visualize that beautiful garden space, how to decorate and color their world, inside and out.”
Hort Couture founder Jim Monroe also believes color-blocked displays are underused in the garden center industry and could be the solution to increased sales, even in small vignettes. “The IGC has to get past traditional thinking about merchandising and try new things,” says Jim, who also owns two garden centers in Virginia and West Virginia. “We also need to focus on monochromatic combinations. We have done some testing with this and the attention that a combo receives that is all yellow or all white is very strong.”
Jack Trout, author of the books “Positioning” and “Re-Positioning” in 2009, was first to coin the phrase “differentiate or die” so perfectly and Lloyd Traven of Peace Tree Farm adeptly applied it to our industry as a call to action. By using color as a signature tool for doing just that, we can set ourselves apart in how we apply it in our specific location. However, it’s how we sell it that makes us remarkable. GP
Christina Salwitz is a Horticulturist at Furney’s Nursery, Garden Writer and co-author of “Fine Foliage,” due out in March 2013. Christina travels the country speaking to audiences on design and horticulture-related topics. She can be reached at personalgardencoach@comcast.net.
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