The Purple Gnome Has Left the Building
Purple Gnome Punch
2 parts coconut rum
1 part vodka
1 part cointreau
Add a splash of organic blueberry juice
And a splash of organic lime juice
Finish with 7-Up
Mix it all up and you’ve got Purple Gnome Punch.
I’ll explain the recipe later…
This week, I’m in Raleigh, North Carolina attending and exhibiting my new products at the Garden Writer’s Association of America’s Annual Symposium. If you want to reach out to professionals who write/blog/tweet about new or even just cool plants, this is the crowd. Exhibiting in the new products expo at Garden Writer’s each year is all about creating a buzz…in more ways than one (more on that later). Creating a buzz about your new products is a wonderful thing.
Creating a buzz about your newly launched weekly e-newsletter is an even greater thing, because then – you can continue to tell them more about your new products on a weekly basis.
This is the show where I pull out all the stops. I get out the glue and the scissors and I start creating displays that draw people into my booth so I can talk to them about my new plants. Talking to them about new plants is what I do best and that’s why I’m here. I try to dream up eye-catching, clever and sometimes crazy ways to get people walking past to come into MY booth. Some think I’m crazy. Perhaps I am.
I’m doing something right because hardly a person walks past without stopping to see what’s new. I discovered many people share my love for garden gnomes. The booth was decorated in gnomes of all shapes and sizes. We even had buttons to give out that had the purple gnome logo and said, “Are U ready 4 The Weeding Gnome?” They were also a hit and it was terrific to see so many people walking the show wearing those buttons. Of course, we had to explain the meaning over and over, but it was quite a conversation starter. It was, dare I say, the beginning of a relationship with strangers.
We give everyone samples, as most savvy vendors do. Samples to take home and plant in their garden so they can live with and get to know the plants. If they know the plants, there’s a good chance they’ll write about them.
So…how exactly does a vendor stand out in a crowd? What can a vendor do to get traffic to their booth? In the past, at garden writers, we served booze. This year, sadly and suddenly, the rules changed. They changed ½ way through the first night just as I mixed up another batch of my delectable Purple Gnome Punch – at a tally of about $100 worth of booze. Apparently, we created too much of a “buzz” – ha!
The man shut us down and our purple gnome punch was forced to leave the building.
I say the “man” shut us down, but he was much more of a young man, perhaps even a boy, a very mean boy. He came to the booth and politely, but sternly asked a very deadly question, “Ma’am (we are in the south, remember?) are you mixing up alcohol in this booth?”. My reply was, “Uh…yes, why?”. He then proceeded to explain in a rather mean voice that if I did not immediately cease serving, he would escort me (and my booth) out of the show.
Doh! It was very sad. The punch certainly created a “buzz”. Maybe too much of a buzz.
People were lined up, waiting for the second batch, begging us to continue serving our deliciously gnomish beverage. We stopped. The prohibition-like news was the talk of the show. People are still talking about the punch. Because it was so popular, I have shared the recipe above.
May you drink it and always toast The Weeding Gnome!
It was a great show. We added lots of names to the list for The Weeding Gnome e-newsletter. We made lots of new friends. We laughed and chatted with old friends. We gave out close to 500 test plants to a fantastic and friendly group of garden writers and professional photographers. I hope they are impressed by the new selections and they’ll write about them in the future. That’s the whole idea, right?
In case you missed the show in Raleigh, we gave out samples of Helianthus x multiflorus ‘Sunshine Daydream’, Stokesia laevis ‘Elf’ and Campanula ‘Viking’. If you’d like samples, send me an email and I’ll get you some for your garden.
Speaking of Helianthus ‘Sunshine Daydream’, it was the hit of the show thanks to North Creek providing me with two huge bouquets of blooms for the booth.
Happy weeding,
Angela Treadwell Palmer
President, Plants Nouveau