The Blogging Nurseryman by Trey Pitsenberger

Here is some good news for the people of the Atlanta area who we’re bemoaning the auction of assets of Pike Nurseries. It looks like 400 of the 700 employees will keep their jobs as the stores change hands, but stay open.

Here is the part that really opened my eyes. You have heard how retail just loves gift cards. Supposedly we are excited because a certain percentage of people never redeem them. They get lost, stolen, or just forgot about, so the store never has to redeem them. Well its nice to hear that Armstrong Nurseries, the California nursery chain that bought many of the stores will honor the outstanding gift cards from the former Pike Nursery. There are over $800,000 of outstanding gift cards that will be honored.

$800,000! I found this number absolutely amazing! This now gives us a better idea of why gift cards are so popular. It’s a credit to the new owners that they will honor these cards. Actually thats really the only thing they could do. Imagine how upset the future potential customers of the new Pike Nurseries would be to be told they cards are worthless. This will help bring those customers back into the stores so they can get a taste of the new operations. I have heard about situations like this where the retailer will not honor the cards. After all its money that was collected by the former owners, and now merchandise from the new owners will be used to honor these cards.

The bottom line is its a good business decision since we are trying to build relationships, not fret over whether to honor a $25 gift card transaction. I want people to redeem the gift cards. I don’t see any benefit to selling the card only to never have it redeemed. Quite often these cards are given to people who haven’t been in the nursery before, and its a way to introduce ourselves to them.

Pike Nurseries which went on the action block, has had various assets bought up by several different people and companies. This one caught my attention. Armstrong Garden Centers of California has bought the Charlotte, NC store for over $5 million. They get the right to use the Pike Name as well as some other retail locations and assets.

Armstrong nurseries have been a southern California staple for years. They have begun moving into northern California with the opening of their store in Dublin, in the Bay Area. Now they are moving into North Carolina. Here is a list of all the Armstrong Stores and their locations.

With over thirty-two stores when does an “independent” cross that divide to “chain store”? Is this move to a completely different environment than California a good one for this organization. I have my doubts, but I haven’t been following Armstrong that closely.

Armstrong does seem to be a lot like Pike Nurseries was, so it may be a good fit. Armstrong Nurseries have a generally good reputation from what I can gather, so it’s nice that where there was a Pike Nursery there will now be an Armstrong (Pike) to shop at. I am just wondering about a move outside of the region they have worked for so many years. While the drought won’t last for ever, what will Armstrong do until then? They have to get the store up and running before spring only to stare straight into the face of water restrictions and negative press. It will be interesting to watch.

It looks like the drought in Georgia has taken a big toll on garden centers. Pike Nurseries, a $68 million a year chain, and one of the country’s largest independent nursery is going on the auction block. They employ over 700 people between 15 stores and 5 garden centers. According to an article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “Pike owes $5.6 million to at least 20 lawn and garden businesses across the Southeast, West and Midwest…” According to the paper, “Neal Aronson, of Roark Capital, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in a Feb. 1, 2008 story, that Pike “isn’t overleveraged; it doesn’t have a lot of debt. It’s just unfortunate that the drought was out of everybody’s control.”

As I went through the comments at the papers story I found it interesting that some of the commenter’s said it wasn’t the drought, but a combination of things that caused the downfall. Some commenter’s blamed management, others the government restrictions on planting, still others blame Pikes “high prices”. Some took delight saying how they would shop at Home Depot or Lowe’s and not miss a step. One said, “The blame falls on the private equity firm that bought the company from the Pike family a few years ago.” Another said, “They were just not good at being nurserymen. Better yet they didn’t forgot how to play in the dirt. They just didn’t like the dirt.”

Having been through a total ban on planting during a drought here in the 80’s I can say its hard to stay in business under those circumstances. Combine that with what appears to be some management issues and the result is here for all to see. The comment from “employee 16” sums up the whole affair, “6:30 am get to work, turn on over head sprinklers. put money in the registers. open all gates. customers start entering parking lot. the rush of a spring saturday morning kicks in your a pike nursery store manager and the best gardeners in the state of georgia come in to buy the best plants available. I never did it for the money I did it because I believed in who I worked for and what I was selling. There will never be another Pike Family Nurseries. Thank all of the people who gave me a job and truly know what a real nursery can offer. May the horticultural gods bless us all.”

I received an e-mail from a friend in the retail nursery business. She will speaking before 60 people today. Like most of us in the business she realizes it’s important, but that doesn’t make it any easier. She really just wanted to be reminded of what all of us know, public speaking is a great, but scary way to reach potential customers. Here is the e-mail I sent back to her.

Your right! Its too important not to do this. I don’t know if you are taking props along, but I have found that when I have something to hold in my hand it helps. I almost always bring some samples of plants, gardening tools, or some fertilizer thats new. Also I like to have some type of handout that everyone can take away with them, of course with our name, phone number, web page, and address on it. Encourage questions right from the get go. Get a couple of good questions, and its just like being at the nursery. As a matter of fact you have to be careful about the questions, since the next thing you know you have run out of time! Also if possible move around a bit. Don’t just stand behind a table. It helps keep the blood flowing and keeps the audience aware.

We know it but its hard to quiet that little, sometimes loud voice in our heads. You have to embrace your fear! As hard as it is to do, the times when my business or I have grown is when we have done something that made me nervous, or frightened. The results we’re so worth it! So many people miss out on the great things in life because of fear. Think about how great you will feel when its all done and its achieved the results you wanted.

After being in the business as long as we have we forget that we are the experts! You’ll be fine, and at the end the audience will want to come up and tell you just how great your talk was. In addition other offers to talk will arrive, since its so hard to get anyone to speak. I use to try and space these talks out because I just didn’t like the fear component. Now I will jump at the offer to talk to just about any group. By jumping right back in it starts to become just a regular thing that I do, and the fear diminishes over time. Never completely gone, but much diminished.

Our small garden center works just too hard to stay in business that to miss out, or allow someone else to speak to all those potential customers just will not do. It’s amazing what you can do when the survival and growth of your business is at stake. If we don’t get out there and spread the word, no one else will. Or, the competition will finally figure it out and do it themselves.

Here is a link to another post on public speaking.

I am interested in Don mentioning in the last post that bare root sales are strong this year for his nursery, and that Dave Wilson Nursery, the wholesale supplier for much of the fruit trees we retail nurseries in nor. Cal. sell, is showing an upswing in sales. Also Melinda, who works at a well established nursery, also sells a lot of bare root.

We are located at 2000′ elevation compared to Dons or Melinda’s locations which are close to sea level. That means we are about three weeks behind in the march toward spring. That may mean are in for an up-tick in bare root sales as we get closer to what most people associate with planting time.

Having been in business for only four years at our current site, we may be getting a false impression of bare root sales potential. I do know that fewer garden centers are carrying bare root. On a trip today Monica and I visited Bushnell’s Nursery in Granite Bay, High Hand Nursery in Newcastle, and The Flower Mill Nursery in Loomis. None had bare root for sale! High Hand doesn’t sell fruit trees, The Flower Mill was selling fruit trees in pots planted last year, and Bushnell’s had a few fruit trees in fiber pots, none bare root. This may explain why people drive to Redwood Barn Nursery in Davis!

I suppose its like anything. The amount of enthusiasm we put into a venture the more we get out of it. I don’t intend on giving up on fruit tree sales as they do sell well for us in spring as potted plants. Being that we are a mountain nursery its harder for people to get enthused about gardening as early as the folks in the valley, where today the quince and flowering plums we’re blooming.

Thanks Melinda for finding my blog “excellent”! Knowing that people actually read what I write is quite a thrill.

We had a great weekend with weather in the high 60’s and clear skies. People are starting to come in and check things out. Surprisingly shrubs and trees we’re high on the list for people, while the bare root fruit trees just sit there. I think that bare root is a dying aspect of our business. I wish it wasn’t so, but people just don’t seem to understand the concept of bare root. It seem most people are more interested in buying fruit trees in the spring and that means they are containerized. We potted up half of our bare root right off this year. Maybe next year we will pot up even more. I shouldn’t get ahead of myself though as we often have a last minute rush to buy the bare root in early spring, by which time they have started to leaf out.

People are interested in fruit tree gardening. They just don’t want to deal with it in the winter, so it’s up to us to make sure we have the fruit trees when they want them, in spring. I think thats the hardest part for us in the business, changing our habits to coincide with the customers new habits. I think interest in gardening is there, its just not following the patterns of the past. We can sit around until we are blue in the face shouting the praises of lower prices and better selection of bare root, but it doesn’t make a difference if people just don’t understand bare root.

I think the death of bare root came about when we started to see fruit trees packaged in plastic bags at the chain stores. You can pick up the tree, take it home and deal with it in a couple of days. If you buy true bare root you have to “heal the roots in” right away. “Heal it in”, whats that? Besides we have to pull them out of the bin for you, while the packaged trees can be picked up self-service by the customer. It’s clear that bare root season for us is a declining season, as far as sales.

As a customer do you know about, or care about bare root? As a retailer do you find bare roots sales declining or growing? If they are growing, what are you doing? Are you selling more container grown fruit trees as opposed to bare root? I am not sure the decline in bare root sales for us is a bad thing, as long as we can make it up with the trees we have “canned up” for spring sales.

Some posts just keep on giving. Two that have gotten attention well after they day they we’re posted are about two companies having problems with their business. Aquascapes is the largest supplier of pond related products in the U.S. Greg Wittstock, the CEO started a blog called Pondemonium in which he details his thinking on what is up with the company. Reading the comments from Greg’s supporters as well as his detractors is an excellent lesson for any CEO considering a blog. Greg even mentions here about quitting the blog because of the reactions. He asks, “Here’s the ultimate blog question to all of you in blog heaven or hell. Should I just button up and close this blog down? Or should I continue to reveal the good, the bad, and the ugly that comes with running any business? You tell me.”

Another post is about Hines Nurseries, one of the largest wholesale plant growers in the U.S. They have been having financial problems and we’re de-listed on the stock exchange about a half a year ago. Commenter Robert Jones has some of the latest on what’s up with the company. He says, “Hines may be going up on the ‘For Sale’ block soon! Rumor has it that a small financial group lead by a former Hines employee is charging ahead with a offer to purchase the failing dirt pile that today’s upper management has created.”

It’s interesting to see these two one time powerhouse companies as they try to steer a course through the choppy waters of doing business these days. Concerning Hines, I had always thought what Robert stated, “… maybe someone with some intellect will look at the crappy business model that creates the illusion of actually making money by selling lower to box stores than it costs to grow the plants! I could never figure that one out!” I can’t either!

While we haven’t gone completely organic, over 90% of our fertilizers are. My largest organic line is E.B. Stone Organics. All the fertilizer in the picture are organic. What I like about these fertilizers, besides being organic is the addition of Humic Acids and soil microbes including mycorrhizal fungi. We have been recommending mycorrhizal fungi be added to the soil for years. These fungi are part of the web of life in the soil that is often missing from soil that has been disturbed, (digging, tilling, grading).

Our best seller in the organic line is Sure Start. In the beginning we always recommend the addition of Sure Start at planting time with supplemental feedings of the All-Purpose. The E.B. Stone line also has specialty foods like Azalea-Camellia food or Tomato and Vegetable food which are also popular. The Tomato Vegetable food is great for those trying organic food growing. We like the Fish Emulsion too, since it also has Kelp Meal added which seems to make a difference.

You’ll see that we do not carry any Miracle-Gro. We decided a while ago to stay away from the easily identifiable products sold by the chain stores. The other reason is Miracle-gro in our area seems to cause tomatoes to grow, but delay the blooming and fruiting. This is quite common as we have lots of customers who come in early summer complaining about the lack of fruiting. “Sure the plants grow great , but…” Nine time out of ten they are feeding with nitrogen rich Miracle-gro. We try and get them to use our organic Tomato and Vegetable food which usually solves that problem. I love it since it shows that we are different, with ideas that work.

I would imagine that there are some customers who choose not to buy the organics based on price or lack of name recognition. After a couple of years of carrying the organics most now know what we offer and either jump on the organic bandwagon or still head to the box for what they know. I will say however that being known as the place to find organics is a great thing. If you have been thinking about switching some of your fertilizer lines to organic I don’t think you will be sorry. Its hard at first when you get the confused look some people give when you tell them you don’t have Miracle-gro. Nothing like seeing someone leave without purchasing, but it takes time to get the word out. Once the word is out those looking for that lifestyle choice will find you and others will learn why organic fertilizers are actually better than synthetics.

What to do with the excess plastic containers that are used to grow plants in has always been a dilemma. This has been addressed before, with one company in England taking the lead. After talking to our garbage/ recycle company Sierra Disposal I have been told that we can recycle our plastic nursery pots with them. We have a dumpster that in the past was just for cardboard. Recently it was changed to a recycle bin that can take card board, plastic, aluminum, etc. They have told us that we can place the pots in the container and they will recycle them.

This is great news. In the past we just couldn’t take back the pots people wanted to return. We would end up with a giant pile of pots we just couldn’t use quickly enough. Now we can offer to take back the empty cell packs, gallon, and larger pots from the customer once they have finished their planting. I would like to encourage that they only bring back the pots from plants they have bought from us, but we won’t get upset if a Home Depot pot or two shows up.

I don’t know if Sierra Disposal realizes the amount of plastic cans a nursery can end up with. For now we will see if we can fit them in the hopper we have, but I could see having a dedicated container just for the pots. Will start with this and see what happens.

Do other waste collection companies offer this to nurseries? What do other nurseries do with the empty pots they can’t use in their operation?

Make of this what you will, but scientists in New Zealand and Japan have created a “tear free” onion. Yes, its weird, and reminds me just how quickly the world is changing.