The Blogging Nurseryman by Trey Pitsenberger

When you comment on this new Wordpress blog for the first time it will ask me to approve your comment. Once its approved for the first time you shouldn’t have to have approval for comments after that. Its is a anti-spam measure. I am glad we have it as we have already caught 12 spam messages that I was able to delete before posting. Now that those e-mail address are listed as spam they shouldn’t be able to get through.

Also I lost a couple of comments in the move. One was from mmw over at Two Gardens concerning my post on Randall Graham and Bonny Doon Vineyards. Actually I still have the comment in my e-mail folder but when we made the move from Blogger to Wordpress it was gone from the post. Just want to make sure it wasn’t removed by mmw. If it wasn’t intentionally removed I would love to comment on what was said. It had to do with money going to marketing and not product quality. Randall Graham recently addressed that issue!

I love the “most recent comment section”. It helps bring to life past posts that are still commented on but would be missed by anyone else but me. The post on Hines Nurseries troubles is one such post. Here we have some comments from people who we’re involved with the organization. Its quite interesting to see the blame laid at the feet of management, which is of course where it should be. By reading the comments it becomes clear that the problems facing this organization goes way beyond the economy, or this companies sweetheart deals with the box stores.

What I like is the comments made at this post are a way for people to explain what really has happened to the company. I am not sure who the commenter’s are but from the sound of it most are people who thought Hines had a good thing going until management screwed it up. If you listen to press releases and what not from the company I am sure you would not hear any of this. Whats neat is when you Google Hines nurseries problems up pops this blog and it attendant comments. Now potential investors and others can hear a more complete story.

No sooner than I write the last post on having fun I read this from Open Register. According to the post “The Deloitte Research Leading Index fell to 2.67% this month, prompting a forecast of weak spending in the coming weeks.” It continues, “More of consumers’ money is going toward mortgage payments” and less to “discretionary spending.”

There is one more thing to worry about if you want. Many of our customers use the equity in there homes to buy gardening and landscape supplies. This downturn in the housing market comes during one of our mildest summers. No heat waves. So once again weather good, economy bad. Oh, well. I am not too worried. We manage to make it through other downturns. Maybe people will start to think of their homes as “home”, and not just an investment. People will also want to do things closer to home and of course gardening and landscaping fits that bill.

I think this downturn in the housing market will affect business. The best way to work around this is to keep having fun and offer the consumer an escape from their day to day worries.

Having fun with the granddaughter at Lake Tahoe

There are so many things that occupy any given workday at the nursery. Paperwork, paying bills, answering the phone, writing the next newsletter, watering, weeding, pest control, talking with customers, talking with vendor reps, etc. At times, especially in spring it can be all so overwhelming and stressful that its easy to forget the one thing thats should be most important on my to-do list. Have fun!

To truly be successful involves so much more than monetary gains. Sure, the cash flow can make a huge difference in my ability to have fun. There are just so many different things that can affect our business to the down side that it could get you in a real funk. Economy great, weather bad. Weather great, economy bad. The instances of weather great and economy great are just so infrequent its not worth waiting around for. “Boy, next year if the weather will cooperate we can really have a good spring and make lots of money.” It seems that the fabled “perfect year” is really an illusion. Thats why its so importnat to have fun everyday.

We are a small business and as such our moods affect the entire atmosphere of the store. My ex-partner didn’t know how to have fun. Just seeing his car parked in the driveway brought everyone down. He thought the business too important not to be serious. I think the business is too important not to have fun. I find that the business is such a part of my life that by having fun keeps me from getting “burned out”. Burn out is easy when you have been doing the same thing year after year waiting for the big payoff.

Thats why I blog, it’s fun. When I started blogging it would have been hard to justify it as a money making project for the store. I just found it a fun exercise and want to take it wherever it takes me. If it improves the bottom line for the nursery, then great. If it doesn’t I will keep doing it anyway because its fun. Same goes for our Creekside Festival or Fall Festival. Everyone has fun and are quick to tell us they look forward to the next years events.

Customers having fun!

We are on our third year here and its just impossible for me to eliminate the un-fun things this early. Until then I try to get those things done before or after work so that when we are open I can have fun, and help spread that feeling to others. Besides, I find it fun to imagine me not doing the un-fun things.

Another small garden center closes in Placerville. Carters Nursery owner Dale Carter has decided to retire. With Sleepy Hollow closing last year, and Carters this year there are no longer any garden centers in the county seat! Oh, there is still the local Home Depot which showed up right about the same time. There are other nurseries including mine that are within 10 to 12 miles from town, so all is not lost.

Last week Monica and I went for a drive up hwy. 49 to Grass Valley. We stopped by the old Happy Frog Garden Center, which closed just early this year. This was the mother ship to our smaller store in Auburn. Over seven acres of gardens and nursery that are gone. The picture shows some Giant Weeping Sequoias that are slowly dying. What a depressing site, all because of mis-management. Please notice The Master Nursery sign hanging on the fence still. I bet The Master Nursery Association was not too thrilled to have to write off the loss of this store. The Association is a co-op of nurseries and when one goes down it affects everyones dividends.

EAL commented at one of my post that in her neck of the woods, Western New York the local nurseries are thriving. She mentions it not an economically thriving area, either. I don’t know if its just here but small garden centers are dropping like flies. There doesn’t seem to be anyone filling the gap yet so I will assume that we just had too many small garden centers in our area. Its either that or mis-management or in Dales case, just wanting out.

I wanted to show some pictures of what the area looks like around here in late summer. We are in the dog days of summer and the hills have turned golden. Haven’t had rain

in in months and most likely won’t for another month. Unlike Carol, we are used to this. With the fall rains the hills will slowly turn green again. Everything that we grow in our gardens must be supplemented with irrigation water. Only the hardiest natives and Mediterranean climate plants will survive without irrigation.

Back to nurseries, consumers vote with their wallets and if they don’t vote for you then your toast. I think in the long run the shake up thats going on in the nursery business in our area will benefit those that remain. We need to stay innovative and positive in our thinking, but a new era for garden centers is coming. Only the fittest will survive.

I seem to be figuring out this new Wordpress system, yet I still have lots of questions. If you have used Wordpress.com it is an amazingly simple system to use. What we did was take Wordpress.org and download it onto our web page thegoldengecko.com. I felt it was time for us to take our work and put it under the home address. Thank goodness my webmaster Denise was able to get it set up. I think it might have drove her to madness. We had been using Blogger, which has served me well for the last few years. I thought it time to switch to Wordpress after hearing from various bloggers how much they liked it. My webmaster was helped greatly by a well known garden blogger. I don’t want to mention her name as she will be inundated with “help questions”. She was on the phone and e-mail with Denise helping work through the problems which arose. For no other reason than just to help this lady made this move possible. She is an amazing person!

One of the things I really like about this system is on the sidebar is a “recent comments” section. I wondered how to respond to comments from posts I made in the past. The post on Hines Nurseries being de-listed is a good example. It was written back on August 10th yet I have received comments up to yesterday. While I would know the comment had been made since I receive a e-mail, no one else would know the comments had been made. Now the most recent comments show up in the sidebar, which is a huge plus.

This is not the design I want for the blog. This is the Wordpress classic which was quickly available. Rather than wait around for everything to be perfect we wanted to get rolling on the new blog, so here it is. Sometimes in business we think things through to the point of never doing anything because its not perfect. Rather its better to get it out there and work on it as it develops. I get to look through a whole bunch of templets, and pick out a great one.

One of the most important things we did was re-direct the old blog address to this new address. That way no one has to change their blogroll as our old address will send you here at the new address. Basically we moved the whole blog over to Wordpress, post for post.

Just wanted to let you know whats up. Please be patient with me as I navigate through this new system.

We are making changes to the blog. While we are doing that you may find yourself re-directed to the new blog under construction, or even our home page for the nursery. This change over from Blogger to Wordpress is giving my webmaster headaches. We are moving along and hope to have the issue resolved shortly.

Thanks go to Charlie in The U.K. for giving me the first heads up on the problem! What an amazing world we live in when friends across the world can have an impact our lives so quickly.

A while back I was interviewed by a trade magazine about blogging. One question was whether garden centers should monitor the internet for negative reviews. My answer was no, just get in on the conversation and occasionally Google you name and business name to see what comes up. I didn’t want to make it sound like you have to sit in front of the computer constantly checking on what people are saying. Maybe I should have said not to make it an obsession but yes, check regularly to what is being said about you.

Here is an unhappy consumer living in North Carolina that makes sure to let everyone know of their disappointment. It’s the second post down. What’s interesting is the $400 Holly trees we’re planted by Paradise Gardens Center for the former owners! Now the new owners have moved in and say all four Holly Trees died, and want the nursery to replace them. The new owners figured that the one-year plant warranty came with the title to the house . You can read the post, but you can’t comment as that function has been turned off.

I like this comment from the consumer, “the 2 center trees of the 4 which are planted in a row, came back to life and are doing great, do to constant care and the use of Miracle Grow.” Amazing how the two dead trees came back to life only with the help of Miracle-Gro” and constant care.

As a nursery person this makes me laugh. As a business person I would be aghast to see this when I Googled the company name. This complaint shows up right under the stores web page! With the comment feature turned off there is no way for the garden center to respond. All the work on the company web page just went down the drain.

If the events happened the way the consumer says, the nursery blew it! Actually it doesn’t matter whether it happened the way the consumer says, since the negative review is out there staring potential customers in the face.

The era of the citizen journalist is here. Everyone has a voice now and there is no way to control the conversation. This of course frightens business people. What happens if somebody with their own motivations decides to deride your company. What if everyone that comes through your store is pleased except for that one “pain in the you know what”? They decide to start a campaign of negativity. It could very well affect your business and the bottom line.

If the affected nursery wants to explain their side of the story what do they do. Put it on the front of their web page? I don’t think so since thats like putting a notice of the event on your front door. What you want is a way to take this consumer aside and see if you can come to an agreement. The problem here is we don’t know the identity of the person complaining. No way to get a hold of them.

If this isn’t a wake up call for how we run our businesses I don’t know what is. Are your return policies fair? Hows the consumer interaction going on at the cash register? Whats the cost of replacing two $400 hollies with the cost of repairing your image? Are we checking out whats being said about us on the internet? Do we have a way for disgruntled consumers to reach the owner, when it seems the other employees don’t care? What if this consumer could have spoken directly with the owner on his blog?

This kind of thing is going to happen more and more. The best way to prevent it from happening is having an open door policy both in the store and on the internet. Check out what’s being said about you now, before you hear it from someone else.

Small wineries and nurseries have a lot in common. How do you get them into your facility? You can buy plants at Home Depot or Wal Mart just like you can buy wine at BevMo or Costco. You don’t even have to go into the winery or nursery. There are lots of cheap wines that are drinkable just as there are lots of cheap plants that work. Most people will never try a fine wine or fine plants, the cheap stuff is good enough. How do we get them into the store and our world?

Wineries are huge fans of direct mail. I receive a number of snail mail as well as e-news letters from various wineries. One I receive is from Bonny Doon Vineyards in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Randall Graham who is the owner is a well known figure in the wine industry. Besides being a bit of an eccentric he was one of the first wine makers to promote the twist top on wine bottles. He found that there was no difference and actually an improvement in the quality of the wine when twist tops are used instead of cork. He realized that people associated cork with quality wines, but he stuck to his guns. Of course now twist tops are common with wines from Australia, and are starting to be accepted by others. Let’s face it I would rather twist the top on and off a bottle that fussing with the cork. While people will still associate screw tops with cheap wine the members of DEWN (distinct esoteric wine network) know better.

For years this winery and wine maker have stuck to their philosophy while the rest of the industry ignored them. Over the years they have built up a loyal following. They have done this by producing quality wines, ignoring what the industry told them, and following their own muse. The one thing that pops out from a visit to their web page is a sense of fun and experimentation. You need this since it can take quite while for good ideas to be accepted. Be sure to watch the “Vive le screwcap” video under “The Dooniverse” section entitled “Learn our ways”.

I can see so many ways this type of marketing can work for the small garden center. Wineries and nurseries both need to educate the consumer without making it seem boring. I think Bonny Doon does it better than any other winery.

Keeping you options open is a good idea for the small garden center. What you thought you would be about when you started may not be what you are about now. This story from the Macon Telegraph on Green leaf Nursery illustrates that. This family run nursery was “opened… on April 9, 1994, concentrating on growing and selling bedding plants and perennials.” The nursery “has consumed their time ‘from dark to dark’ ever since, said Nancy Lawrence, co-owner.

When husband Ray Lawrence bought $500 in statuary with only $300 in the till he took a chance. “I’m independent,” he said, grinning. “I’m a renegade.” Apparently the decision was a good one as they quickly sold those pieces and ordered several thousands of dollars more.

Here is where they realized that in their particular niche they needed to take “the business away from growing so many plants” and concentrate “on sales of garden ornaments and statues.” Even better “Ray soon became dissatisfied with the quality of purchased statuary, and he began studying all facets of production. In 1997, he bought his first molds and began pouring and finishing his own statuary - some of it his own designs. Now he owns more than 1,000 molds.”

They have even started custom work. According to The Telegraph, “They pour and install tiered fountains all over Middle Georgia. Their largest fountain bowl weighs 1,160 pounds. ‘Last year, we installed a fountain every eight days,’ he said.”

This nursery has the same concerns most of us have. According to The Telegraph, “Big box stores such as Lowe’s and Home Depot have made the garden center business tough for local owners, and several in this area have gone out of business in recent years. And fewer young people are as interested in gardening as their parents were.”

This is an interesting take from Ray Lawrence, “nostalgia brings some people to gardening, when their mothers die,” he said. “They’ll come in and say ‘My mother raised this flower, or that flower, and I want to plant some in memory of her.’”

He is a great example of looking at the surrounding business climate, changing assumptions about what your garden center is about and going for it. Sometimes our stubbornness at running our businesses they way we think they are suppose be run blinds us to the opportunities that are available elsewhere.