It Was a Very Good Year (Unless You’re a Bowling Alley)

Judy Sharpton

Let’s be honest: the last several years have been more than challenging for all segments of our industry. The economic downturn coupled with rapid changes in consumer expectations and behavior has left the landscaping side and the retail side reeling. As consumers fulfilled the prophecy that Kip Creel of Standpoint Research delivered to our industry more than five years ago, the “process” of gardening succumbed to a product-oriented shopper. Americans on average devote 12 minutes to breakfast and 22 minutes to individual shopping events; so how could anyone expect this crowd to dig, plant, mulch, fertilize, water, weed, prune, mow, aerate, rake, bag, compost, clean, deadhead and spray, not once but multiple times during the year.

Pictured: Professional graphics combined with planted containers show customers how to use our products, not how to master our process. By way of full disclosure, I don’t work for Scheurich, but I can spot retail ready anywhere.

It’s no wonder container gardening is our fastest-growing segment. When we start with a simple hanging basket and then branch into patio and porch containers, window boxes, raised beds, wall planters, green roofs, water gardens, desktop planters with fountains and all the iterations of each of these container components, it’s easy to understand how Goebbert’s Farm & Garden Center outside Chicago can have 12 people handling the work in the custom planting department.

From garden center owners to industry pundits, the news is all good for those who can translate the savvy info into their own stores. Ron Vanderhoff of Roger’s Gardens reprises Kip Creel’s early understanding of product over process when he says, “People still want beautiful gardens; they just don’t want gardening.” Ian Baldwin reiterates the concept with this: “The word ‘gardening’ has an image that doesn’t even to begin to describe so many of the positive aspects this activity offers—we probably need a new word.” I know we need a new concept of garden as products, not gardening as process.

From my own perspective as a store development specialist, I was gratified to read numbers experts Steve Bailey and Sid Raisch encouraging investment in store renovation both to entice customers and to create environments that support much-needed price increases.

And then, Corey Bordine stood up in front of a capacity audience at the IGC shows in Washington and Chicago in
August and warned garden centers that they run the risk of becoming bowling alleys if they continue to offer the customer a second-class shopping environment with the same-old-same-old products. That got my attention and the attention of many of the conference attendees. Corey has an impressive résumé that includes Bordine’s Nursery and Coca-Cola. He told attendees to reduce SKUs and not allow long-time staffers to derail progressive ideas. Pretty strong stuff.

But we need strong stuff. The customers are out there. They just won’t buy the same old stuff the same old way. They won’t visit an outmoded entertainment venue with nasty shoes and bad pizza.

A pair of displays in the Scheurich booth at the IGC show illustrates what we have to show customers. Professional banner graphics act as a backdrop to demonstrate containers adjacent to doorways and on porches. This isn’t your dad’s home-built house front or dilapidated window frames placed randomly around the store to mimic a homeowner’s use of our product. This is retail. Just like Whole Foods and Crate and Barrel and Apple.

That’s what we have to be: retail. Anything short of that is just a bowling alley. GP

Judy Sharpton, LEED Green Associate and member of ARCSA, is a garden center design and renovation specialist with 35 years experience in advertising and promotion, and is the owner of Growing Places Marketing.