Pancakes for Dinner and a Flower Shop on Each Corner

I’m so worn out.

Too much travel, too much heat, too much to do – it’s all getting to me. My brain is running on empty and at the same time, I’m wired because of all the upcoming shows and my ever growing to do list.

Before I forget, please visit the Plants Nouveau, new and improved, double-wide booth at the Ohio Florist Association, Ohio Short Course, July 11-13 in booth 2232. There’s sure to be lots of color and if I can pull it off, we’ll be watching The Netherlands take on Spain for the World Cup Championship in the booth. I was hoping for a Germany vs. The Netherlands, sister country rivalry to the death match, but my dreams were shattered Wednesday when Spain clearly out played my young Germans.

I digress…

It was a blast being in The Netherlands to cheer on the team for a game. We went to a pub to see the game. We were the only Americans, of course, and our lovely Bed & Breakfast host called to tell them we were coming, so they knew we were there. The Oranje fans were so nice to us, and we kept getting congrats on the run of the US Team – as if I had something to do with it.

It was a fantastic time and we were thrilled to be a part of such a huge win for the Dutch team. Sneijder!

We also ended up in Bonn, Germany for a game as well and this time, took to the streets for a public viewing. There were flat screen TVs everywhere. Every store and pub, every restaurant and ice cream shop (and if you’ve been to Bonn, you know there’s no shortage of ice cream shops). Everyone was watching the game. It was happy mayhem when they won.

We blew our vivuzula horn (which was orange cause we bought it in Holland, but we dressed it up with a lay of flowers the colors of the German flag for the German game…we are very adaptable folks) for each goal, which isn’t an easy task.

Ever blown one of those? It’ll give you a sore throat in a New York minute if you don’t do it right.

OK, enough about futbol, or Soccer, as we Americans say. How about some plant stuff, eh?

My goal for this trip was to visit some of my breeders in The Netherlands to see what they are working on and to visit as many garden centers as I could find in both The Netherlands and Germany to check on how they are doing things in Europe.

I can’t really tell you about what I saw while visiting the breeders – I’d have to kill you.

It’s all top secret stuff that will be released in years to come, but there was some really exciting new stuff!

My last day in The Netherlands was spent eating pancakes, French fries with mayo and hoping from garden center to garden center. No herring yet, for me. I was going to try one, I swear, but I chickened out…sorry.

I noticed one thing in every garden center, small and large, while I was in The Netherlands… the merchandising was phenomenal.

Imagine walking into Macy’s, or Old Navy, looking for a white shirt. How many sections would you have to shop to see all the white shirts they have to offer? What if all the products were merchandised according to color? Would that make your shopping experience more pleasant?

What if you knew nothing about plants and all you really wanted was a pink flower? Wouldn’t it be nice to see a bench with all of the pink flowers they had in one spot?

Well…that’s how they merchandise in The Netherlands and somewhat so in Germany. Not so much with the perennials, shrubs and trees, but most certainly with the “cash and carry” or gift plants they sell.

The majority of the garden center is devoted to gifts. You know, gifts that you would take to someone if you were invited to Sunday dinner or a gift for your mom when you visit or a friend who just had a baby.

What do you mean you don’t do that?

Ah ha…therein lies the problem with the comparison. In the US, we don’t buy disposable plants as gifts unless it’s a major holiday. Poinsettias, lilies and mini roses pretty much dominate that market. Maybe the occasional African violet and orchid, but there’s not usually much to choose from.

Plants, especially houseplants and forced flowering plants used for indoor display, are not a huge deal here. They are not part of our culture. On any given day in The Netherlands, whether you are in a huge garden center or a small, village flower shop, there are shelves and shelves to choose from and they are merchandised meticulously, like they were the shopping equivalent of Anthropologie or Norstrom in the states.

Besides that, the outside plants weren’t that exciting. Can you believe I only saw 4 selections of coneflowers altogether? Nary a garden phlox to speak of and the woody plant selection consisted mostly of hydrangeas and evergreen conifers.

Everything was very modern and colorful, as most items in Europe are, but there was nothing revolutionary, except the grouping by color, which I think really could work…especially for the novice who has no idea what they are looking for.

The tool sections were amazing! The most colorful tools I’ve ever seen. They had Gardenia and Wolfe Garten galore (my two most favorite brands). I bought myself a new Dutch hoe attachment for my Wolfe Garten pole. So very exciting!!!

I also found 6, very handsome new gnomes, as you can see from this issue’s top picture. It’s a gnome family photo.

What was surprising was the lack of perennials in German garden centers. Some of the most useful, well known perennial selections have come from Germany and The Netherlands. Are they just really smart and, only selling them in the spring, when its better to plant?

Each and every center I visited in mid June had a less than stellar showing of perennials. Some had none.

There were plenty of conifers, evergreens and annuals, but barely a perennial section between them all. For all I know, they could have been full of perennials in the spring. Does anyone have any experience with German and Dutch garden centers in the spring? Are they loaded with exciting, healthy perennials?

I was expecting more. I guess I was searching for answers that just weren’t there. Is their industry any better off than ours right now? Are they doing things differently?

As far as this plantweenie could see, things were much the same for the majority of green goods sold. As I said before, the only Wow! moment I had was the merchandising by color. It reminded me of Garanimals (boy, I’m dating myself now, aren’t I?) Remember the line of children’s clothing that was sold by the color family? So you could buy a pair of pants and then two or three shirts off the same rack and they were sure to match? Apparently, they are still being sold. Have they been successful?

Infant clothes are sold that way. Why not clothes for adults? Why not plants?

Imagine the how helpful it would be to shop the houseware departments if they were merchandised by color? If you needed a lime green accent, you’d go to the lime green section. Crate and Barrel does that well. Ever been to one? One of my favorite “looking” stores.

It’s sort of like gardening for dummies or paint by number, but guess what folks…most consumers are “dummies” when it comes to buying plants. That’s why it’s often intimidating for them to walk into a garden center. It’s like me walking into the Apple store at the mall.

I have to do it because everything I own is a Mac, and I know how to use this stuff – I’m no tech dummy, but every time I walk in there, I feel intimidated. Intimidated by young kids mostly, but also by all the new stuff that I don’t know.

Apple is the king of marketing to “cool” people. Their stuff makes you cool, or at least you think it does. Their commercials are hip and cool and their colors are so much brighter than any other computer company. Everything for the iphone is cooler. The covers are cooler, the apps are cooler, the price, now that’s not cooler, but people pay to be cool.

People may be intimidated by all the stuff in there, but they are so helpful and once you get in there, it’s like a big toy store for adults where you can play and try anything you want and a 16 year old will answer any question you have about anything – and if they don’t know (which is rare…) they find someone who does. They go out of their way to help you and make sure you get what you want and have a pleasant experience.

Our plants can be intimidating. Garden centers can be very unfriendly, from the phoney, retired greeter at the entrance handing you sales fliers and trying to get your kids to smile, to the unfriendly, usually unknowledgable sales staff who put their heads down and pretend they are tending to the plants as soon as you need to ask them a question, and finally to the checkout lines manned by gum chewing teenagers who don’t know an annual from a perennial.

“Intimidating!” I say. Intimidating.

How can we make garden centers cool, like the Apple store? How can we make garden centers (and home stores) the place people go to ask questions about gardening – like the Apple store is the place to ask anything about one of their products? Apple trains their employees.

Novel idea, eh?

I still don’t think consumers who buy plants want brands. Many people will argue with me about this. We haven’t conditioned them to look for brands like they do when they shop for clothes or electronics. They want pretty plants that will live and they want to know everything there is to know about taking care of them. The next generation wants even more information than I do and they want it fast. They want it really fast. And they don’t want to wait for it. I bet hey have no knowledge of plant brands.

Sadly, I have yet to come up with the golden ticket to fix our nursery/garden center industry, but I’m frantically working on it. I will be merchandising my trade show booth this weekend like a Dutch garden shop. I can’t wait to see if it draws more people in. I’ll surely keep you posted on Twitter (@plantweenie) and on the Plants Nouveau Facebook fan page.

Next week, I’m excited to bring you some feed back from my readers – feedback that may point us in the right direction. Here’s a hint – buy local.

For now, I’ll leave you with a quote from one of my favorite movies, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory (this is from the Johnny Depp version, but I adore them both).

Veruca Salt: I wanted to be the first to find a Golden Ticket, Daddy!
Mr. Salt: I know, angel. We’re doing the best we can. I’ve got every girl in the place to start hunting for you.
Veruca Salt: All right, where is it? Why haven’t they found it?
Mr. Salt: Veruca, sweetheart, I’m not a magician! Give me time!
Veruca Salt: I want it now! What’s the matter with those twerps down there?
Mr. Salt: For five days now, the entire flipping factory’s been on the job. They haven’t shelled a peanut in there since Monday. They’ve been shelling flaming chocolate bars from dawn till dusk!
Veruca Salt: Make them work nights!

Working night and day to find our golden ticket…

Happy weeding!

Angela Treadwell-Palmer
President, Plants Nouveau

PS. Have you seen the press release about the new Burpee digital vegetable tag?

I think they may be onto something. I’m not sure how it works, yet because they are unveiling it at the Ohio short course this weekend. I’ll surely have more on this once I see it, but it sounds really awesome and right on target for GenY customers.

PPS. OMG…Echinacea purpurea‘Pink Double Delight’ truly has looked these last weeks of 100+ degree days and low humidity, on top of extreme drought conditions (although I am trying to keep them sufficiently watered…) smack dab in the face and it just keeps saying, “Bring it on!” There’s no stopping this ever-blooming coneflower from AB-Cultivars. It really is a winner and a selection that will be hard to top for many generations to come.

I hate to keep pushing this one, but it really is great everywhere it is planted. According to Stephanie Cohen, famed landscape designer and best selling author, “’Pink Double Delight’ tripled in size, covered in blooms, and it certainly has a wow effect. You may get one prettier, but you won’t get one that grows any better!”

Thanks for the comment Steph. Comments on the plants we introduce are always appreciated – both good and bad!