The Blogging Nurseryman by Trey Pitsenberger

Victor hit it on the head when he said, “you have to go into those shows with a positive attitude”. My last post, “The dog days of summer” reveled my crankiness, and not so positive attitude. It’s just that Chicago is on the other side of the country, and I have a business to run. Unlike some stores that have a crew to cover the bases when the owners are gone, we don’t. That’s why shows that are local are easier to attend. In addition the vendors are more likely to want to deliver to us up in the foothills. There are a lot of small garden centers who are in the same boat, and would love to see the show on the internet. Why not have a virtual show on the web that everyone can attend? That’s the promise of the internet, bringing people from all over together. Sometimes we can’t “press the flesh” and a virtual show would fill the bill. Why can’t we look at the floor chart of the show, move our mouse over the vendors name, and up comes a sample of what they were showcasing at the show? We could even take advantage of show specials. Seminars? Where are the web casts? I realize that the show is a for profit enterprise, and people attending in the “flesh” pay the fees. An entrance fee could also be charged to virtual attendees.

I remember attending trade functions where the owners would talk about taking tours of English garden centers, or travelling with other nursery people in Holland, or attending trade shows in Chicago, and wondering how they do it. Of course, these owners we’re in charge of larger nurseries that were family run for a generation or two. Well established with the means to do these things. A smaller garden center with a crew of two or four has a harder time pulling this stuff off. That’s why a virtual trade show would be better than not having all those smaller garden centers not attending.

Our Linkedn group, Garden Centers, Nurseries, and New Media is closing in on 500 members. We have 480 as of this date. Your invited to join. The group is, “A place for people who work for, buy from, sell to, or otherwise have an interest in garden centers and nurseries. An interest in the the use of new media to create a better future for gardening and gardening related professions is the glue which holds the group together.” Other than creating the group, and approving members, I stay out of managing the group. I find it amazing that it functions virtually on it’s own with little or no feedback on my part. Seems I am good at starting projects…

After blogging for over five years certain trends become evident. One is the lack of blog post from me, as well as other garden bloggers. It’s hard to fight it, so I don’t. As George Ball said of my blog, “…as expected, he blogs depending on time available.” Even though physically I have time to blog, mentally I need to take a break. The other reason there are not many posts this time of year is, nothing is happening worth writing about. Blogs like Garden Rant have “guest ranters” who fill in the spaces between ideas. I don’t, so time passes between posts.

Since I don’t have any real agenda,  posts are at my leisure. I am not trying to build up my readership. Those who enjoy my writing will wait until I post again. In that sense I feel liberated from my sitemeter. 100 visitors, 500 visitors, it doesn’t matter. The quality of the readership is more important than quantity.

The latest post at Garden Rant is titled, “Where is the Julia Child of Gardening?” The answer to that was discussed here back in 2006. A man named Mr. Flowerdew was the imputus for the post. Sorry gang, but a Julia Child of gardening is not forthcomming.

So the big IGC (Independent Garden Show) show was last week.  I know a lot of people attended, but I havent heard back on what the show was like. You would never find me flying accross the country to attend another trade show. Just looking at all those ernest vendors ready to show me why their product is the next big thing makes me cringe. This is not just the IGC show, but most nursery trade shows. I am just burned out on them. Besdies, visiting trade shows that are more local centric would be a better choice for most folks. Even the local shows around here, Nor Cal or Far West, don’t intrest me much. So inspire me! What did I miss out on?

I think the best places to look for ideas is outside the mainstream horticultural industry. Here is a cool new product, Smart Pots, that I found out about from my customers. Maybe they had a booth at the show, but after walking through an auditorium filled with products, I would have overlooked them. A customer tells me to carry them, and I am all ears. That’s what is fueling my buying this year. What do my customers want, not what the industry want’s me to carry. I don’t know if Foxfarm was there, but we sell a lot of their fertilizers. My color and vegetable growers we’re not there, as they are way too small and local to need the large venue.

Be forewarned,  we are a small nursery just managing to pay the bills this year, and stay in business. We are not a top 100 retailer, and why anyone would listen to my advice is beyond me. The trade shows are put on by good people who mean well for the “industry”. My personal reasons for not attending should not color your decision to attend, or not. Every nursery is different and should chart it’s own course.

If you are a  garden center, or garden blogger and attended the show, did you find it worth the trip? Come on now, make me jealous. What was the one great new idea you came away with? Maybe a lot of important smaller ideas? Vendors with something new and exciting? Why will you attend again next year? Why not?

The comment from Sid Raiche at my last post was right on! Sid wrote, “…There is a certain level of predictability expected at the mom & pop hamburger or garden joint too, even your day care center. The minimum expectation at any garden center - chain or independent, is that you will have for example, bag mulch, at least one good planting trowel reasonably priced, a certain selection of basic plants appropriate for the time of year and your region, and so on. We call those the ‘NEVER-outs’. But time and again I’m in stores where customers are being sent elsewhere for the basic expected items. In one store recently they told me they get calls regularly, ‘is your bulk topsoil dry?’. At another, ‘do you have a bale of straw?’ These are not absolute necessity items for all garden centers, but can you think of ONE box store that would have either? We get too hung up on a lot of stuff that doesn’t matter that much to most consumers while ignoring some basic blocking and tackling retail competitiveness. And yes, if we’re going to sell something we must be just about as consistent about it as McDonald’s is with their Big Mac, and as the Cheesecake Factory is with their service. No excuses and take no prisoners.”

When I wrote predictability versus uniqueness, I did not mean we as smaller independents don’t need to have a measure of predictability. Yes, our customers expect certain things from us. A friendly smile, courtesy, the right items in stock, etc. Here is the hard part though, we have to provide that and a measure of uniqueness that set’s us apart. It’s not an easy row to hoe. Of course, I would never tell you that running a garden center was a breeze.  One of the hardest things for me to do is put aside the 30 years of garden center experience and take a fresh look at our business.

That’s what we did this last winter when all around us retail was sinking. What did our community want? What had we insisted on carrying that the community didn’t want. We needed to let those thing go, and build on the other. It’s not as easy as you think, especially when you have been in the business so long. Thank goodness we started to surround ourselves with people who had an interest in gardening, but we’re not “in the business”. They we’re able to show us things, and way’s of doing things that we had missed. We beefed up our selection of specialty fertilizers, and soil mixes. We are expanding our nursery into a  couple of the units we lease out in front, and will have a coffee/smoothie bar there. It will be run by a young couple, with a lot more enthusiasm than Monica and I can muster at this time. We are now your indoor gardening experts with all the lights, and other necessary items to do it right. Beefed up the selection of smaller 4″ sized perennials and annuals, and reduced the amount of 15 gallon and larger plants’s, which are just not selling this year.

Sid’s comment was timely, as garden centers everywhere are looking to re-invent themselves into a vital must have resource for the community. Our mistake in the past here, is not having enough of those “must haves” when people want them. It’s so hard to keep the inventory up during the season, especially when we have to buy the plants, and don’t work on a pay at scan program. Our local Home Depot has that distinction as they always have the common stuff that people buy time and again. They have suppliers constantly taking out the old, and bringing in the fresh, since there is no expense other than labor for the box store. That’s no excuse for us, though.

When you get down to it that really summarizes the reatil experience.  Give the customer what they are looking for at a reasonable price, and they will shop with you forever. What does our customer want, as opposed to what we think the customer should want. There is a lot of ego involved, and it’s not always easy to let go of ideas and things that have worked in the past, but don’t work now. That’s the challenge.

A comment from anonymous, concerning late blight on tomatoes say’s, “As a 24 year veteran of retail, farmer’s market retail and box store wholesaling, I’ll take a big grower’s product over the local backyard gardener any time. the required level of Knowledge, resources and investment make transmission of disease and pests much more unlikely. It was often with dismay that we discovered we’d been assigned a stall next to ‘Dirty’ local plant material and were forced to risk our whole offering or give up our retailing spot.”

It may well be true that transmission of disease and pests is lower at well run, larger operations. Never the less, when something wrong does occur it can affect a much larger population than a smaller growers problems. This is the same argument we hear when someone compares  McDonald’s to a local hamburger joint. Sure, the food from McDonald’s is normally quite safe to eat. The dinning experience is predictable from one store to another. And there is a time when a McDonald’s Breakfast Sandwich is just right. Then again we have some local hamburger joints around here that blow away anything you can get a McDonald’s. The burgers are just way better! There is a level of trust that occurs at both operations. You have to trust that they are doing everything correctly and serving safe food. McDonald’s wins the award for being able to do that time and time again from store to store. The price however is a certain bland predictability.

The nursery business is the same way. The box stores, and their suppliers are basically following the McDonald’s model. Predictability over uniqueness. Sometimes we want that predictability. The majority of gardening customers also like that predictability, which is why the box store nurseries are so popular. I have no illusions that the majority of people are suddenly going to give up shopping at the box stores. A smaller percentage want to shop at locally owned garden centers. Some of those locally owned garden centers are “dirty”, as anonymous suggested. There in lies the quandary. Predictability equals a certain blandness, and lack of choice. There will always be people who take that route. Just take a look at almost any subdivision in America. The yards are all the same.

On the other hand I feel that there is wisdom in insecurity. Life is so much more interesting when we allow ourselves to experiment, and try new things. Maybe it won’t be good, but then again maybe it will be fabulous! That’s the interesting thing about Heirloom tomatoes. Some are fabulous and some are awful. Hybrids are predictable, but a great hybrid will never be as good as a fabulous Heirloom. You trade off some characteristics for others. My garden would not be as much fun if all I was dealing with was hybrids. Tomato wise I plant half my crop in hybrids, and half heirlooms.  I would be unfortunate if all that was available at your local garden center were hybrids. Yet that is what is being contemplated at the box stores. Predictability over uniqueness. Your choice.

Here is another interesting comment about the Late Blight that we have been talking about the last  few weeks. This comes from Dr. Margaret T. McGrath at Cornell.

What’s interesting to me is the lack of concern from employees at the box store. According to Dr. McGrath, ” The store manager I spoke to on the morning of Saturday 27 June said he could not do anything with the symptomatic plants since the store did not own them as they were being sold under consignment (other university/extension staff elsewhere got similar responses).” Because they don’t own the plants until pay at scan is complete, it’s not their problem. This comment is disturbing, “The most severely affected plants were gone when I returned Monday afternoon, but there remained some that should have had visible symptoms that morning based on the severity of the symptoms when I saw them. The clerk in the gardening center didn’t say anything about the condition of the plant, which was one of the worst, that I brought to the check-out to purchase (for a colleague investigating the pathogen strain(s) involved with the outbreak). She had a good opportunity to look it over as she turned the pot to find the bar code. There were still plants with late blight for sale in this store on 2 July.”

Dr. McGrath hit it on the head with this, “Under the current marketing system there is not the ability or knowledge (plus perhaps interest and concern) at the retail level for a store response which greatly exasperated the situation.”

Here is the full comment from Dr. McGrath,

“Update and Corrections on the Late Blight Situation in NY from Dr. Margaret T. McGrath.

Following my report on July 1, more information was obtained from home gardeners as they learned about late blight and brought plants to extension diagnostic labs. On Long Island, where I am located, some gardeners reported late blight started on plants purchased as early as mid-May.

While late blight is not uncommon in the northeastern region of the US as a whole, occurring most years in some potato production areas, it is uncommon in other areas. This is the fifth time late blight has been found on Long Island during the 22 years that I have been the vegetable pathologist here. And it is the earliest and most widespread occurrence. Previous first diagnoses were on 5 July, 26 Aug, and 3 Oct in 2 years. The 5 July outbreak was in a commercial potato crop. The grower successfully managed late blight by destroying affected plants and applying fungicides that target the late blight pathogen. Other growers were immediately alerted so that they could adjust their fungicide programs, which normally would not include products specifically for late blight. No additional crops were found affected that year.

Plants were not removed quickly from stores in all areas. On 13 July, 19 days after the first report of late blight on tomato plants at a store in NY, NYS Ag & Markets inspectors brought plants with late blight to me for diagnosis. Some of these with the Bonnie Plants label were severely affected suggesting the disease had been present for awhile.

Under the current marketing system there is not the ability or knowledge (plus perhaps interest and concern) at the retail level for a store response which greatly exasperated the situation. The store manager I spoke to on the morning of Saturday 27 June said he could not do anything with the symptomatic plants since the store did not own them as they were being sold under consignment (other university/extension staff elsewhere got similar responses). I explained the seriousness of this disease, I left him with the write-up prepared for gardeners, and I showed him the symptoms although he really didn’t want to see them (when I asked if he wanted to see the symptoms he said ‘no not really’ to which I responded ‘you really should know what it is’ as I turned and led him to the next aisle where they were). I hoped that he would look at what I left and decide maybe this was something worth looking into before Monday morning when he said Bonnie Plants staff would be coming as usual to take care of the plants. I especially hoped there would be a decision to remove the plants considering it was finally a nice weekend that would likely bring out many gardeners. The most severely affected plants were gone when I returned Monday afternoon, but there remained some that should have had visible symptoms that morning based on the severity of the symptoms when I saw them. The clerk in the gardening center didn’t say anything about the condition of the plant, which was one of the worst, that I brought to the check-out to purchase (for a colleague investigating the pathogen strain(s) involved with the outbreak). She had a good opportunity to look it over as she turned the pot to find the bar code. There were still plants with late blight for sale in this store on 2 July. The response (hopefully) would have been much faster if what was being sold was something contaminated with a human pathogen. Fortunately late blight does not directly affect people and the pathogen is not like another plant pathogen, Aspergillus flavis, which produces a carcinogenic metabolite. However, late blight can have a tremendous impact. It is a very destructive disease that can cause complete crop loss, as is happening this year. The financial and emotional distress can be insurmountable.”

With the talk about Bonnie Plants not growing heirlooms next year for the chain stores we hear another reason why it might be wise to plant some heirloom tomatoes along with those hybrids. Farmer Fred Hoffman has a post today about the health benefits of growing heirlooms. According to Fred ” An old academic study has received new life among heirloom vegetable gardeners. Making the rounds is a research paper conducted in 1999 and released in 2004 at the University of Texas. The conclusion of that research: supermarket vegetables available in 1950 were healthier than the ones purchased in 1999. The vegetables’ nutrient value, including protein, calcium, iron and riboflavin, has declined in recent decades while farmers have been planting crops designed to improve other traits, the study says.”

This is actually great news since it gives us the information we need to make educated decisions about what we grow in our gardens. My garden has 12 tomato plants evenly divided between hybrids and heirlooms. I do love the taste and uniqueness of the heirlooms. Monica and I have started putting small wedges of “Black Krim”, or “Lemon Boy’ on crackers with cheese. I would have never thought that would work but it’s delicious. Waiting for our “Green Zebras” to ripen as they are suppose to be great with cheese.

This information is just what the independent garden centers need. Since finding heirlooms will be hard at the box stores, the only place to find them will be the independent garden center.  More and more it is becoming clearer that the box stores are homogenizing gardening. Choice is becoming more limited, not the other way around as we we’re promised.

If your interested in learning more about heirloom tomato’s be sure to head over to This Garden is Illegal.  Hanna has been publishing her tomato tastings at her blog for years now. Today she weighs in on “Silvery Fir Tomato”.

Thought I would pass on an interesting comment I received on my last post, Bonnie Plants Responds? It is from Dave Lambert, and includes some interesting observations. Here is the comment in full.

“There is absolutely no doubt that Bonnie is the source of the blight epidemic in many places - this isn’t just the press echo chamber. Here are the facts from Maine: One week before blight was discovered, tomato plants were shipped from Bonnie’s local supplier in Dresden, ME to stores across the state. Immediately after the New York report, blight experts here started checking and found 20% or more of the Bonnie tomatoes diseased at every chain store visited (tomatoes from other sources were clean). The range of symptoms indicated infections 1-2 weeks old, demonstrating disease had occurred in the source greenhouse. At this point, no blight had been found anywhere else in the state, despite widespread and intensive scouting by the extension service and the potato industry. The blight strain isolated from these plants and from subsequent secondary outbreaks in central and southern Maine is US14, rarely found here but common this year in the South. Subsequent scouting around Dresden detected the very beginnings of an outbreak in small organic and other market farms. It was evident that these infections were neither old enough nor abundant enough to be the source of the greenhouse problem. This area has no recent history of blight, but a number of potato and tomato crops have been lost there in the subsequent three weeks. Finally, if Bonnie was so confident of their local suppliers, why would one of their out-of-state representatives have been quoted in a local store just after the initial outbreak saying “You ought to call your Department of Agriculture and have that place (Dresden) shut down”?
That said, how might this have happened? I share your opinion that Bonnie’s people are not venal, although much of what they’ve been putting out is somewhat evasive non-denial denials. Not knowing anything specific about their operation, here are several guesses based on 15 years field research with this disease. Frequently removing any diseased plants is a standard and appropriate practice. However, it leaves nothing for inspectors to find. Neither does it arrest the disease. If a single plant is missed or has started to sporulate when it’s removed, you can easilly expect several times as many newly infected plants which will not show symptoms for nearly a week. In this way, the disease can be carried on for months and be shipped anywhere, even if only a single plant is infected. The situation is worse in trucks. The only sure way to eradicate blight, once established, is to clean out the affected section. I suspect that many managers do not appreciate this or might not want to tell their supervisors that a) they’ve let blight into their section and b) all the plants have to be destroyed. Spraying - any new foliage produced between one spray and the next will not be covered and will be susceptible. Coverage is extremely important and will vary with the time between sprays. What fungicide was used? Was it a general protectant with value for Botrytis and seedling early blight or was it a systemic with some kickback more appropriate for late blight? The main points here - blight is extremely easy to tansmit and move around, spraying is helpful but not foolproof, and the best people to detect the disease are those handling the plants - if they are backed up with diagnostic help and managers willing to make hard decisions.”

Interesting.