Maybe there is just so much news out there to bother with this. Bordier’s Nursery, a $27 million year operation with over 600 employees filed for bankruptcy.
They listed over $50 million in debts. This is big news, yet when you Goggle Bordier’s Bankruptcy the only news is from , Court House News, and other legal web crawler services, and this blog. Where are the horticultural news services?
While we hear the main stream media bemoan the advent of blogs, you have to wonder what we missed over the years. This is one reason why garden bloggers are becoming more and more important to the gardening world. They are the ones bringing up subjects that we need to address in our businesses.
The horticultural industries are in a rapid state of change. What we need now is to address areas that might have seemed taboo before. Sure it can be painful to address some issues, but that’s what needed. Garden Bloggers often bring up issues that are painful, or don’t fit with the image we have of ourselves. Yet these are the very people who often shop at our stores, and want to continue shopping with us.
Ilona’s Garden Journal, a blog from Ohio, had a good post on this. She basically tells us what she want’s from garden centers. If I owned a nursery near where Ilona gardens, I would make contact with her. Let Ilona know that we appreciate her taking the time to express her views. Link our blog to her’s, etc. This is the future as I see it. Sure we will look at the big name blogs for the big news, but it’s the locally involved garden bloggers that will wield a lot of influence in each of our locales. This is the grass roots support we need.
You’re right of course that the trade press should be looking at this kind of thing as a news clipping/informational kind of thing on the Net but…
It’s always the big “but” - it is only of interest to the trade of course - gardeners for the most part aren’t overly inconvenienced if a garden center or two go out of business. Most folks shop at more than one anyway - and it’s “too bad but let’s move on” kind-of-thing. Sad but true - we all move on when our favorite store goes out of business.
The trade press might find it of interest if it’s a singleton item - or of national importance (or even of major regional importance) but if it’s one of many happening right now - it isn’t news or even a story an advertiser wants to support. (Would you want your advertising next to stories of business failures?) I had an editor I respect very much tell me once that it was my first amendment right to write anything I wanted but an advertiser had the same right to decide not to advertise next to it. Guilt by association.
So - I don’t know the company or the story. It isn’t germane to my readers that I know of (unless you can tell me why it is) but it may be important to yours and for you to tell the story and put it out there.
Comment by Doug Green — January 9, 2009 @ 8:20 am
Thanks for the encouragement and your kind comments about my post. And this post plus your twitter alert sent me here to take note of something I would otherwise not only not know about, but have no context for if I had come across it.
Blogs like yours give the additional context and connect us to people who know ( and care) about their venue.
What happens in the nursery trade directly affects those of us who garden (and this is in the large sense of gardening). I do think news gets suppressed sometimes for the reason that the media overlooks its pertinence, probably unintentionally. That is where you can give us context that the news wires might not.
Another thing that I think is happening : whenever something has economic relevance there is the competing need to inform vs the need to keep people from panicking. But that is a whole ‘nother type of blogpost
Of course, I think I’m going to have to blog you again- you are a regular firestarter when it comes to good blog content
( I realize my metaphor is probably not a good one in the California context- HA! It’s a nice one here in cold Ohio)
Comment by ilona — January 9, 2009 @ 8:35 am
Surely there is some merit to industry media writing about these bankruptcies. Without informed resources we are left to the rumors of the street or the web(like my inaccurate second hand info on El Modeno!). Even predictable press releases from the companies involved at least give us some idea of what is true and what is not.
Comment by Les — January 9, 2009 @ 11:18 am
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Pingback by The Blogging Nurseryman by Trey Pitsenberger » Big news in a small world | — January 10, 2009 @ 7:35 am
Hi Trey,
Your post opens my eyes to the reality of the “online garden blogging community.” There are many different voices representing “niche” interests that comprise the greater “garden blogging” world.
You, for example speak as a professional retailer, I speak as a professional landscape designer and gardening coach, then there are other bloggers that are everyday gardeners with varying interests. A news post like the one about the horticultural trade may be of interest to those of us whose business will be affected, the everyday gardener, maybe not so much.
I come to your blog for this kind of information and I think it is important for people in the gardening trade to share and comment on this kind of news. The blogosphere has provided us with a platform to connect and bloggers like you, give us an insiders opinion to listen to and interact with. What I think would benefit the garden retailing community is for them to be internet savvy and start logging in and connecting with each other.
Shirley
Comment by shirley "EdenMaker" — January 10, 2009 @ 11:04 am