Jackson & Perkin’s and their parent company Park Seeds has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. We haven’t bought from either company for years. I remember that our sales rep for
With major wholesale nurseries like Hines, Bordier’s, El Modeno, Jackson Perkins, etc., going bankrupt and having to reorganize it’s time to recognize the small garden centers and wholesale nurseries that have stuck it out without going bankrupt. Quietly paying their bills and getting up to head to work each day. Bankruptcy happens, and in the business world it is sometimes the only way forward. Get it over with and move on. If you find yourself in that situation it is some comfort knowing that even the big boys with all the talent and assets they posses can find them selves in a bind at times.
Trey,
Do you get the PDN newsletter by Tony Advent? It is just once a month, long but newsy. I love it. Not only does he tell you what are his best selling plants(I consider his plants to be mostly unusual and somewhat for the collector, pricey, too!! I like to see which ones I am growing, seldom can afford to buy. Window shopping, I guess. Just like to know what’s out there. ) Anyway he had the whole story on Parks, the take over from the original owners, the aquisition of several large and prominent mail order companies. facinating! It reads like a novel.
.
Thanks for your letters. I always read them even if I have to save them for a couple of days.
Comment by Mary Hoblit — May 5, 2010 @ 5:58 am
Yes, I learned of their bankruptcy a few weeks ago with a phone call from a rep of Parks Seed stating due to financial constraints they were no longer able to ship my roses. The only reason we had roses this year was for a rose garden we built for a client. I finally got some roses and waiting on more but had to make sure our local grower had them and only through keeping on top of things, did I get/will I get them.
I am new the retail garden industry and I am amazed at the number of large corporations that are having financial difficulty. Thank goodness we have great clients and are having a wonderful spring!
Comment by Lynne Phillips — May 5, 2010 @ 2:12 pm
Trey,
“Back in the day” as they say, when J&P was on top of the world many of their sales reps did drive nice cars. They made a lot of money, and they also helped many nurseries make money on what was at that time the top-shelf brand in horticulture. I have known several of those reps over the years and they are all what I would call “class-act” salespeople. If things hadn’t been changed the way they were, J&P might still be the number one PREMIUM brand in the industry.
Then in the late 80’s to early 90’s the owners got greedy. They messed with their reps commissions and also started selling in the chains - Lowe’s for one. The brand lost its lustre. I’m not sure but I suspect they cut advertising too. All of this might have been an attempt to avoid the decline in interest for high maintenance hybrid roses in favor of hardy and disease resistant shrub roses. J&P failed to maintain their lead at least partially because they failed to respond to this trend. They almost became generic to “high-maintenance” in the world of roses and any good salesperson from another wholesale rose company could get business away from them. Fewer and fewer consumers insisted they wanted J&P exclusive roses and the necessity of selling them in the garden center declined to a point of no return.
Fortunately, today there are many newer varieties of roses available that are hardy and disease resistant and have good qualities for fragrance and form. These include more than the Knockout Rose series that are leading the charge to put roses back in every garden. Several rose breeders and nurseries have introduced many varieties of hardy and disease resistant roses in recent years and many of those are available from other growers as well, but still there is a stigma associated with roses that is tough to break out of.
There is a lesson in this for other brands of plants who choose to sell through mass-merchants and lose the loyalty of the people who built their brands. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to be willing to accept this or acknowledge the truth in it. There is a reason Ralph Lauren Polo is not sold in Walmart and other discount chain and that is because they protect their supply chain all the way though the retail distribution to the consumer. I’m not saying a retail garden center should not carry those brands that do sell through discount chains because it may make sense for some of them to do so, but I am saying they should value highly those brands that protect them in the interest of long-term value of the product.
Comment by Sid Raisch — May 6, 2010 @ 8:47 am
Great comment from Sid - I wonder when Proven Winners will wake up and smell the roses so to speak.
Comment by Christian — May 7, 2010 @ 2:46 am
I don’t like to buy from them that much any more because their hybrid roses don’t seem to grow for me and they charge very high shipping fees. I do love visiting their website and look at the beautiful roses though.
Comment by Teresa — May 26, 2010 @ 12:42 pm
I worked for J&P for more than 20 years (on the retail side in customer service and then as their primary photographer for 10 years). In my early days, there was a pride in the product that was unmatched. Things changed and began a slow decline when the company left the smaller “family-owned” corporation style and became part of the large corporate world. It became about profits and little else which, arguably, is what a corporation is about but that also slowly erodes employee pride and confidence.
I knew several of the salesmen (who I’d meet at rose reviews in the growing fields where I’d be photographing the newest varieties), including the one who drove the Jag. Good guys who really did have the company’s interest at heart and who made a nice living for which I cannot fault them. Though I wasn’t directly connected, I know their situations, too, slowly degraded over time.
Anyway, I have some great memories of my J&P years and there is certainly a tinge of sadness at knowing where they are at this moment. I can still experience a bit of pride (even if anonymously) when going into a garden center and seeing the occasional J&P Redi-Plant boxes or tags that continue to use some of my images. Ah…those were the days!
Comment by David — July 13, 2010 @ 6:46 am
This is SO sad. It is the third bankruptcy/going out of business I have experienced first hand this month. I went to our local, (excellent), tile shop on El Camino, Palo Alto, only to find the front door locked and the owner packing up a van parked at their back door - I cried. Three days ago we went to a local lumber yard (Mintons in Mountain View), only to hear that they were operating on a skeleton staff until they closed their doors in a couple of weeks, this was very depressing. And now Jackson and Perkins. I am so sorry and I don’t understand our news broadcasters telling us that we are slowly recovering - NO WE ARE NOT! We are going down again, FAST.
Comment by LAHs — August 1, 2010 @ 10:02 am
Charley Perkins is rolling in his grave. Not only are the big box store putting the local businesses under, but now the suppliers.
Comment by John Zornow — September 6, 2010 @ 12:26 pm