Retail Nurseries

October 2019

By Bill Goloski — Posted September 30, 2019

Learn how retail nurseries are bringing customers into the stores during the off-season. Plus, Christmas tree farmers who weathered through the rough recession share their outlook on the future, and Oregon State University talks about their new hazelnut cultivars. In this issue: Retail for the holidays: Garden centers transform themselves into destinations for fall and […]

Retail for the holidays

By Tracy Miller — Posted September 26, 2019

Garden centers transform themselves into destinations for fall and Christmas The months leading up to December can lead to a slowdown in business at many garden centers, as gardening activity decreases. But some retailers have made these months quite profitable, and without going too far off mission, if at all. After all, nurseries and garden […]

Retailers’ Choice Awards™ at Farwest 2019

By Bill Goloski — Posted September 5, 2019

Retailers’ Choice Awards™ at Farwest 2019 were presented to thirteen exhibiting firms for awards during a presentation on the Farwest Solutions Center. The Garden Center Group’s Danny Summers and Christina Salwitz lead the retailer search. Products were selected specifically for garden retailers in search of the best new products both live goods and hard goods […]

Exciting, unusual and underused shrubs

By Kym Pokorny — Posted July 26, 2019

Trees frame the garden, perennials clothe it, but shrubs give it the bones that bring everything together. Yet so many of these essential plants never make it into the landscape. Shrubs like the exquisite Camellia × williamsii ‘Night Rider’ from New Zealand with its deep maroon red flowers and brilliant, reddish-purple new growth or vibrant, […]

Green from the ground up

By Tracy Miller — Posted July 26, 2019

Whether the customers are landscapers or retailers, the most sought-after characteristics in ground cover plants for pathways and walkways are the same. People want low-growing, low-maintenance, drought-tolerant, evergreen, flowering, noninvasive, deer-tolerant, durable and — gaining in popularity — rabbit-resistant plants. And it would be nice if they could also help with the dishes! Customers […]

Where gardeners turn for answers

By Mike Darcy — Posted July 26, 2019

Garden centers typically can offer their customers several advantages that big box stores can’t fully duplicate. One of these is the ability to provide customers with valid, localized information about the challenges they face. When I ask my neighbors, friends and other gardeners where they would go if they had a question about a problem […]

Lessons from a rebrand

By Ian Doescher — Posted June 24, 2019

Tillamook Creamery — and the cheese, ice cream, yogurt, and butter it produces — is an Oregon Coast institution with international reach. Its products are available around the globe. I’m passionate about Tillamook cheese. It’s the only cheese I will buy, and their ice cream is a treat. Recently, in celebration of their 110th anniversary, […]

Current trends at the garden center

By Mike Darcy — Posted May 24, 2019

It should come as no surprise to those who know me, or read this column, that I like to visit garden centers! Just walking around to look at the plants and talk with some of the personnel — whether they are salespeople, managers, owners, or customers — it is a very enjoyable time. It is […]

The value of the green label

By Lloyd Nackley — Posted March 27, 2019

Survey tests whether customers will pay more, as well as which messages resonate the most By Lloyd Nackley, Bruce Colman and Sharon Selvaggio We’ve all heard it. People are worried about pollinators and want to do what they can to help. Some are planting pollinator gardens, taking up beekeeping, or choosing organic foods to try […]