The Blogging Nurseryman by Trey Pitsenberger

Get ready for eco-friendly everything. As we race into the future companies will all be trying to “out-eco” each other in this lucrative market. Joe Gardener.com has awarded Scott’s/Miracle-Gro’s Deluxe™ EdgeGuard® Broadcast Spreader its “Best of the must haves list”. According to Joe Gardener, “In their effort to provide more eco-friendly solutions, The Scott’s Company has answered the challenge to this ongoing problem and hit a homerun in the process.” As the web site says “An easy to use on/off control lever instantly activates a shield below the hopper that prevents fertilizer and other chemicals from being thrown onto areas where it is not intended, such as waterways, streets and other impervious surfaces.” So there you go, a spreader that applies the product where its suppose to go is now an “eco-friendly solution”.

Making products that work better is always a good thing. It’s just that calling it eco-friendly smacks of pandering. Where does it stop? Sure a spreader that doesn’t throw fertilizer and pesticides where they are not needed is good, but eco-friendly? Wouldn’t pulling out the lawn be even more eco-friendly? Why not just say the spreader works better? Because it doesn’t sound as cool as “eco-friendly”. We are about to be inundated with “eco-friendly” everywhere we look. It will become just another phrase without a lot of meaning to get consumers interest.

It’s taken about 30 years for eco-friendly to become mainstream. It makes you wonder what the people who where there at the beginning of the eco-movement are thinking. Stuart Brand, the publisher of the first Whole Earth Catalog recently started to criticize the international environmental movement he helped inspire. He wrote an article in Technology review that might surprise lots of people who have known of Brand and his work all these years.

My latest edition of Nursery Retailer arrived and in the very back, in the section titled “Consumer trend watch” we find a story titled “Today’s young homeowners want you to do the dirty work for them”. In the article we hear that Generation X and Y “want beautiful gardens and outdoor rooms, minus the sweat and hard work that come with them”. The article continues, “they take interest in environmentally sound gardening and raising organic vegetables and fruits-though they’d probably prefer to hire you to come over and do it for them…” Finally this, “And don’t even try to tell them they need to learn the Latin name of the ornamental grass they are eying across your nursery yard”. This last one is interesting as I have never thought anyone needed to learn the Latin names of plants. They should however be available for the consumer when deciding on purchasing a plant. This also sounds like the boomer generation who is getting on in age. As a matter of fact it sounds like just about everyone nowadays. I am not so sure it’s just a quality of Gen. X and Y.

O.K. what’s a small garden center to do? At first blush you would think the way to capture this market is to have a landscape designer to design their landscape, a crew to install the landscape, and a maintenance division to care for landscape.

The problem with these reports, as they deal with our garden center business is it ignores the more lucrative niche markets that exist within these demographics. Maybe 8 out of 10 Gen X want you to DIFM (Do it for me) but there are 2 out of ten that find the whole notion of “DIFM” or “not getting dirty” silly. Why fight the big companies for the DIFM market? Scott’s, Depot, Lowes, and the rest are charging straight into the DIFM market.

We think there is a whole sub-culture of people who desperately want to be different than the masses. They see a generation saying DIFM and decide they want to be different. “Not getting dirty”? Our niche audiences want to get dirty! They want their kid’s to learn about dirt and how plants grow. They come to our “kid’s classes” where parents can share with the kids the joy of nature. I read about groups of Gen. X and Y that go and plant abandoned lots in various cities so as to beautify the neighborhood. That’s not very DIFM. Our workshops are sometimes more popular with Gen X and Y than the boomers

We believe a lot of these trends are real. DIFM, dropping Latin names, “don’t want to get dirty”, do seem to be happening with much of the population. We don’t think however that a small business should be focusing on such a large demographic. Focus instead on the small niche markets that want something different than the masses. These niche markets often cross generational boundaries. Organic gardening, native plants, xeriscape, garden workshops, water gardening, community gardens, and more are enjoyed by members of the Boomer generation as well as Gen. X and Y.

As everyone rushes to address the DIFM, and “Not getting dirty” market small garden centers should be addressing the other markets that get passed over. That’s where the action is.

Garden Rant asks “How could garden centers better serve you? We’re looking for the Top Five Ways they could improve.” As I scroll down the list there is a theme to the responses. Most want more information about what they are purchasing! A number mention including Latin Names on signage yet this is one area that the garden centers seem to be running away from. From what I read in various trade publications the trend is to drop the Latin names and use only the common names. We are told that the buying public just doesn’t care about Latin names anymore.

Susan, the post author says she wants of garden centers “More information about the plants they sell especially the Latin and correct cultivar name, but also exposure, water requirement and ultimate size.” This theme is echoed in the comments. People do want more information and Garden Centers are the place to provide it, yet we find ourselves told to reduce the amount of information we provide. “Drop the Latin names and watch sales grow” seems to be the mantra.

Some might say that the comments on a site like Garden Rant are those of enthusiasts, not the general buying public. These are exactly the kind of people we need to market to, the enthusiasts. It’s the enthusiasts that spread the word when they discover a “cool” garden center. Enthusiasts are out in the blogosphere spreading the word about the places they like. I don’t think a garden center could stay in business with just the enthusiast’s shopping, but I do think you need the enthusiast to be the voice of the nursery. They are the megaphone that every garden center needs. They will guide others interested in gardening to your store. Much of our business is word of mouth and it’s the enthusiasts that speak for us the loudest. They often bring neighbors new to gardening in to “get them off to the right start”.

I have a fear of following trends. It seems like when ever people follow trends weather it’s the stock market, housing market, or nursery trends they lose. Following trends is following the masses. My garden center is not marketing itself to the masses. I want to market to that 5% of the consumers that appreciate the difference that a well run garden center with lot’s of information offers. Let the other 95% of consumers head to the box stores where no Latin names are found, the staff is less than knowledgeable, and the plants are in need of help. Box stores lead the way in the “no Latin names and little info about the plants they sell” world. Why follow that?

Ask a wine enthusiast what’s important about the wine they drink and they will tell you it’s the taste, but so much more. Where are the grapes from? How are they pruned? How long in the barrel? Skins left on how long? Bottled when? They want to know this stuff. What would they do if you said “Here, just drink this, it tastes good and it’s in a pretty bottle?” They would go elsewhere, where the winery appreciated their interest in learning more about wine and was willing to teach them the nuances. Look to the small wineries with the cult followings to see how smaller garden centers should operate. Sure they may not sell as much as Gallo, but they get a lot more per bottle and they have enthusiasts out spreading the word and bringing new people in to join the wine club all the time.

Open register , the blog of Garden Center Magazine asks about the current state of the “Fall is for Planting Campaign”. Here in northern California fall is the best time to plant most shrubs, trees, and perennials yet the turnout by the consumer is less than satisfactory.

Of course we in the garden center business have no one to blame but ourselves. Somehow we are not getting the message through to the consumer. The folks at Garden Rant talked about this at length a while ago.

I don’t know what the solution is but we are working on educating the customers that wants to be educated, our mailing list. People who receive our e-news and snail mail newsletter have already given us permission to inform them. We will continue to promote this planting season to them as a sort of “secret to success” that only they know about. Let’s face it, the vast majority of consumers don’t care that fall is for planting. There is a small percentage of the public that will accept the message. We’ll focus on those people.

Garden centers need to be the voice of the outside world. Many people are divorced from the realities of life outside. We think garden centers have a unique opportunity to become sort of “eco-learning centers”. As more people feel the need to connect to nature they will want a place to learn, and share in the discovery of gardening and it’s relationship to our well being. Garden centers are positioned perfectly to be that place.

We can’t rely on horticultural industry marketing for “Fall is for Planting”, which has to this point been ineffective. We’ll have to go directly to the consumer. We will do this with e-mail newsletters, snail mail newsletters, our web page, my blog, workshops, and speaking engagements. We believe these methods are for us more effective than mass media.

I’ve got some good news for us “baby boomers.” Just when we thought we would have to resign ourselves to being “boomers” we are sent a savior! Thanks to Jonathan Pontell we are now the younger and more hip “Generation Jones”. If you are one of the lucky “baby boomer’s” aged 41-52 you can leave the boring “boomer” scene for the trendier “Jones Scene”. I couldn’t find out how old Jonathan is but I would like to think that he is a “Joneser”, since only someone in our generational demographic could come up with such a cool way to redefine ourselves.

The celebrities that were lucky enough to be born between those magic years are jumping on board the new demographic. Rosie O’Donnell, Maureen McCormick, (actress Marcia Brady), and George Stephanopoulus (ABC News) have all proclaimed their joy at finally being able to identify with this new demographic. As the Chicago Sun Times say’s, wherever Pontell goes the subject has “people in that age bracket” responding, “Yeah”.

If you we’re one of the boomers that missed this important demographic cutoff all we “Jonesers” can say is “invent your own demographic!” It’s not that hard. The next step will be segmenting each demographic into even smaller segments. I already feel a bit alienated from the “Jonesers” in the over 50 age bracket. The 50, 51, and 52 year olds must have really lobbied hard to be included in ‘our’ demographic.

As a nursery retailer we are told by consultants to discern the subtle and not so subtle differences between “Gen X”, “Jones”, and “Boomers” so as to be better able to target each of these three demographics properly. This just seems like to much work so I am going to target my demographic, “The Jones”. “Boomers” will want to be seen to be as cool as a “Joneser” so they will respond while “Generation X”, also know as the “lost generation,” will respond to the more mature and self-assured “Jonesers” marketing that we will produce.

The excitement builds as we all rush to focus on this completely new demographic, which apparently has been ignored or not properly focused on until now. You can imagine all the consultant work that will be needed by companies concerned about how best to approach “The Jonesers”.

Michele at Wonder Branding point’s us to Home Depot’s latest attempt to convince us they care. Their “True Stories” ad campaign is part of new CEO Frank Blake’s attempt to, as he say’s “restore the image of Home Depot as the friendly local retailer run by happy, helpful employees.”

I don’t remember the Home Depot that Frank remembers. “Friendly local retailer run by happy, helpful employees”? This is the same Home Depot that over the last 15 years has been called a “category killer”? The only thing that Home Depot has done is work on running most of the local friendly retailers out of business. I’ll admit that some of those retailers needed to go out of business, but to say that Home Depot was ever looked upon as a “local retailer” seems to be stretching it a bit.

We are being inundated by advertising that attempts to paint a picture that is something beyond reality. When Scott’s/ Miracle-Gro President Jim Hagedorn run’s an ad campaign in nursery trade publications saying he “cares about independent garden centers” yet his two biggest customers are Home Depot and Wal-Mart it just doesn’t ring true.

These attempts by large corporations to paint themselves as something they are not is the small and medium size businesses ticket to attracting more consumers. More and more consumers will want to know if the companies they do business with share their values. If their values include trust and the truth then these attempts by Home Depot and Scott’s will fall on deaf ears. When Frank Blake say’s he wants to return to an image of “Home Depot as the friendly local retailer” we friendly local retailers that are still standing know we have been on the right track all along.

Over at An Alameda Garden Claire posted about her trip to The Nor Cal Show in San Mateo. This is northern California’s big nursery trade show.

Claire mentions how at the end of one of the exhibit halls four displays were aimed at appealing to four different demographics. As Claire say’s “Generation X, Generation Y, the Baby Boomers, and the generation that I fall into, the unfortunately named Jones Generation. How was each presentation supposed to appeal to each group? You got me. All four of them looked interesting but staged and styled beyond any semblance of reality and none of the individual elements seemed to me particularly suited to any special demographic.”

I was unable to attend the Nor Cal Show this year so was unable to see the displays. Claire’s comments would seem to indicate that this type of marketing is not going to work in our business. I don’t see how it’s possible to segment our consumers into such fine demographic distinctions. Can anyone say for certainty how Gen. X gardens differently than Generation “Jones”, or “Y”.

Wouldn’t it be better to market to a “lifestyle” that embraces the out of doors whether it is Gen. Y or the Baby Boomers? There is too much cross over in what each demographic appreciates in a garden to attempt to segment the consumers into such narrow divisions.

Wouldn’t a display aimed at Generation Y appeal to Baby Boomers looking for what’s new and hip. How about a display aimed at Baby Boomers that appeal to Gen Y that is looking for something they think of as “retro”? A modern, colorful, well thought out display should have good crossover appeal to every generation.

We can build our nursery displays in a way that we think appeals to the young and hip Generation “Jones”, yet I bet most of the purchases out of that display will be made by Baby Boomer’s, since they account for the largest segment of our sales in the nursery. Claire couldn’t quite discern how each display related to that generation, and the consumer won’t either.

P.S.

I have added a link after Carol mentioned in the comments she hadn’t heard of “The Jones Generation.” Linda, who’s comments also appear below left this link to Jonathan Pontell’s web site. He first coined the term “Jones Generation.” I made the mistake in the post of assuming that “The Jones Generation” was a younger demographic. It’s actually used to describe the ages 41 and 52 which puts me smack dab in the middle.

Amy Stewart’s book “Flower Confidential” is out! This has been fun to watch as I have followed her over the last year, so to see the book finally come to fruition is great.

I first found out about Amy when she noticed my blog here. I followed the link over to her blog and found out there was a lot more going on with garden blogging than I realized.

The floriculture business has many of the same issues as the garden center business. Especially on the independent side the small and medium size florist is competing with grocery stores and chains like Costco that sell cut flowers. I am sure the floriculture industry is going through some major changes and it will be interesting to watch as they do it.

I was asked to write a piece about “Why I blog” for the folks at Garden Center Magazine. The publishers Branch-Smith are also responsible for The Green Beam, an internet site for the nursery industry. They recently started a company blog titled Open Register and that’s where the article resides. Check it out here.

We in the garden center trade are under intense pressure by media and “experts” to follow trends. They say the way to success is to look at what the mass of people are doing. Selling organic products from your store is now “trendy” because everyone is into it. When you have Wal-mart selling organics, Scott’s putting out a line of organics, and the media types all telling how organic they are you know it’s a trend.

I think the trend towards organics is great! As a business person we sell lots of organics and the more people are aware of them the better sales will be. Of course the list of places where you will be buying organics will be increasing so to stay ahead of the curve we in the garden business will do like we have always done. Offer a better product, packaged more thoughtfully, and backed with better information on how to use.

The problem with following trends is everybody else is doing it. To stay ahead as an independent small garden center you have to create the trends. The hard part of that is that its lonely creating trends, and most of the time you don’t know you are doing it. Sometimes you’re the first to notice the very beginnings of an upcoming trend and can ride the wave. Most of the time you’re just doing what makes sense to you but it takes awhile for the consumer and especially the industry to notice.

Garden centers selling organics is nothing new. John Dromgoole, owner of The Natural Gardener Nursery in Austin, TX has been involved with organic gardening for thirty years. He has been teaching and selling organics before it was trendy. You can hear him speak at the upcoming Independent Garden Center show in Chicago. He must think it’s great to have so much interest now in what he has been doing for so long. Still he must wonder why there is so much excitement in the garden center industry now. Where has everyone been? The time to have gotten involved with this and reaped the greater profits was years ago. Sure there is room for the organic market to grow but the competition is getting a lot tighter. Now that Scott’s and Wal-mart has recognized the importance it’s going to be everywhere. We are about to be bombarded with an advertising campaign that will try to incorporate every eco-catch phrase possible. Organic, ecological, natural, eco-friendly, and earth friendly seem to be the most popular now. I think we’ll be “The Home of Eco-Friendly Gardening”™

The secret to success as an independent is to not “follow the money” but rather have the “money follow you.” If you follow the big money it leads to large corporations who leave nothing to chance and only move a certain direction when they are very certain of a result. By the time they are certain this trend will be profitable for them the real trend setters have already moved in a different direction. The real trend setters might not know the direction they are moving. An aversion to following trends will lead them to a “niche” that they might enjoy for awhile, before everyone else figures it out. Real change takes place on the fringes, not in the middle.

What’s the next trend going to be? I don’t know. Most likely it’s getting started by someone who is passionate about what they do and willing to buck the trends and set their own course. Following trends is safe but boring, bucking the trends and creating your own style is scary but ultimately more rewarding.