I Am The Lost Child of Steve Jobs

~ Gene Wilder, The Wondrous Boat Ride from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

In this, the new year of 2011, which direction ARE we in the horticulture industry going?

Is there anyway of knowing?

Have the rivers of the bad economy stopped flowing?  The grisly reaper is certainly mowing down the deserved and often not so deserved.

Willy Wonka took his guests on a scary, psychedelic boat ride and they had no idea where they were going, but they jumped in and followed him blindly.  It was frightening for some, but they were willing to take the chance to stay in the game for the prize at the end – a lifetime supply of chocolate.  Who wouldn’t want that?

What’s your prize for staying in the game?

Are you mixing it up a little and taking your customers on a magical, psychedelic ride to a world of gardening or are you just hoping and keeping your fingers crossed that things will get better if you stay the course?

Things may never get “better.”  What will you do then?

How will you stand out against your competition?  Whether you are a garden center owner, a landscape designer or a garden writer, what does the future hold and who on your staff will set the trends?

If you think you’ve got it all figured out and your customers love you, they are loyal, and they would never go anywhere else, think again.  That’s what Microsoft and the PC thought.  Apple came along with cooler looking products, innovative technologies, a more user- friendly shopping experience, outstanding customer service and a staff that can answer any question and solve any problem.

Do you have any of this?

Are you too busy pushing metal carts full of plants to wait on your customers in the spring?  Are you expecting the fancy, hanging picture tags to sell the plants for you?  Do your customers come into the garden center and feel lost, like they are in Best Buy, searching and yearning for someone to help them buy a computer inside a huge abyss of electronics or do they enter and environment much like an Apple store, where the path is clearly marked and there are easily accessible sales people overflowing with knowledge, eagerly waiting to help you achieve your goal?

Now, that would be an exceptional garden center.

I’m sure there are a few out there, but it’s certainly not the norm.  Just like there were a few innovative ideas at the MANTS (Mid Atlantic Nurseryman’s Trade Show) show in Baltimore this past week.  Innovation certainly didn’t rein. It was far from the norm.

The road to being exceptional is a tough one.

It’s much easier to be average than to try and be exceptional.  Most businesses in the horticulture industry are milquetoast at best.  It’s hard to find much above average. Few are extraordinary.  Outsiders might call us beige.

Beige.  What a dreadful color for the horticulture industry.  Could we at least be taupe or ecru?  At least they sound better.  Is sounding better enough?

Not in this economy.

I know you all know I am an Apple girl, a Mac mama, if you will.  Think about Apple and how they never stopped innovating for a second.  Microsoft and the PC rose to the top in the early 90’s and once they had the market cornered and analysts said Apple just might go out of business, they sat back and enjoyed their success.

Do you think Steve Jobs ever allowed the Apple engineers to stop innovating?

Do you think his ever-competitive and wondrous mind ever rested on its laurels?

Uh, nope.

Steve Jobs came back to Apple in 1997. Back to the company he founded and was then ousted from.  He took it over and made research and development critical to their mission.  Later that same year, he introduced iMacs in every color of the rainbow.  He used colorful, trendy, prime time ads on television to entice consumers.  Apple started regaining market share and then rose to the top when they revolutionized the MP3 player by introducing the ipod in 2001.

They didn’t stop there.  Mac computers of different form and function are updated just about every year.  Apple developed the iphone, and a revolutionary tablet called the ipad.  They marketed them well and created untouchable consumer demand.  As with most new Apple products, followers order in advance and stand in line for hours to buy their latest updated product or new invention.   Steve Jobs kicked ass, and has taken a huge share of the PC and Microsoft’s customers away, and they may never go back.

What have you done to gain market share and develop loyal customers for the future?

Steve Jobs is never satisfied.  He’s happy with what they’ve accomplished, but he never rests and as soon as they have one successful product launch, he’s either onto the next invention or working behind the scenes to improve what they’ve already released.

Apple also strikes a cultural nerve with Gen X and Y.  They make hip products, sold in hip stores, by hip young folks who know more about the products than any of us could ever hope to.  On the other hand, the PC and it’s Windows operating system are now viewed as computers for older people.  There’s nothing hip about them.

How does this relate to what I saw this week at the MANTS show?

Apple is always thinking beyond existing market models, anticipating and even creating demand.  I don’t see that in the nursery industry.

Walking around one of the largest winter trade shows should surely ignite my creative juices.  I hoped to find some new and exciting products or innovative ways of marketing among the thousands of vendors.

Sadly, I found very little excitement and innovation.  I know I’m hard to please, especially being the lost child of Steve Jobs, but I wanted desperately to see cool stuff.

I am the consummate dreamer.  I’m sure Steve Jobs is part dreamer too or he wouldn’t be the master of perpetual innovation and improvement.

Does our industry have a dreamer?

Is there someone who is implementing change and improving things every year? Is anyone out there making exciting, eye catching trade show displays?

This should have been the year to standout against the competition, but sadly, most blended in.  Even those who did stand out in the past were hiding behind average displays in this troubled year when you’d think those left standing tall would be eager to tell people what they are doing to rocket themselves into the future.

MANTS was mostly the same old companies, exhibiting the same old things, using the same boring displays.   It has been that way as long as I have been attending (and that’s almost 20 years…yikes!).

People come up to me and ask, “What’s new? What ‘s exciting?” This year, my answer was…

“Not much.”

I did see a few things that were nice and I appreciate nurseries who are finally accepting the whole sustainability thing, although I think they are a tad bit late, but I welcome their effort to stand out in a crowd.

I did find a clever, enticing logo in the booth of my friends from Aquascapes Unlimited.  It’s terrifically clever, and I can’t imagine any child walking past this logo in a garden center, not wanting to buy a pitcher plant.  The details make this special.  Did you spot the fork and napkin he’s sporting?

Awesome.  Way to go Aquascapes.  I can’t imagine a better spokes-thing to invite young gardeners into the dragon-like world that is carnivorous plants.

I also spotted a new booth design for Imperial Nurseries.  I do like the mannequin, although her hair needs a good brushing. I love the new backdrop.  It’s an inviting picture of a garden center lath house.  There’s a woman with a shopping cart filled with color in the center and she’s surrounded by lots of colorful plants and bright hanging baskets.

It implies shopping and that is what it’s all about.  They also had a gigantic plastic bat made for the launch of the Home Run rose.   Home Run is a large, very disease resistant rose.  The bat is a great icon for this powerful plant (wicked thorns on that thing too…).

And last, but not least, I liked the feel of the Overdevest Nurseries booth.  They have embraced eco-friendly and they are now selling most of their plants in a biodegradable rice pot that has proven to break down faster than most on the market in University studies.

Their booth is about lessening the carbon footprint of the customer.  With easy care plants and eco pots, they are showing their customers (garden centers) how to cross merchandise with organic fertilizers and other eco products in an attractive, yet naturally beautiful way.  I like their new footprints tag and the posters that say “Stepping Toward a Greener Tomorrow”.

That’s about it.  Three impressed me out of thousands.

So, my New Year’s resolution and question to you is…

How is your business going to be exceptional in a world that can be quite boring?

It’s much easier to sit back and be status-quo.  Being exceptional is hard.  I challenge you to be more exceptional than your competition.

I never stop thinking and dreaming.  My goal is to be exceptional. I want to live in a world where the norm is constantly challenged and improved.  I started Plants Nouveau with a dream and not much money, so innovating was tricky, but creative.  My imagination runs wild at times, but I pride myself on being innovative and willing to try new things.

Will you try with me?  Can we make this industry more exciting?  Can we make it a world of pure imagination?

You know it’s coming and you all know how much I adore Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory by now, so here you go.  In closing…

“Come with me and you’ll be in a world of pure imagination.
Take a look and you’ll see into your imagination.
We’ll begin with a spin traveling in the world of my creation
What we’ll see will defy explanation”

What have you seen lately that defies explanation?

Until next time…Happy 2011 and Happy Weeding

Angela Treadwell-Palmer
President, Plants Nouveau

PS.  Speaking of exceptional, Arie Blom of AB-Cultivars has done it again with another breeding breakthrough.  We all know Echinacea tennesseensis and how it is an endangered species.  We’ve also seen a few selections made from crossing this species with others to increase bloom power and longevity in coneflowers.  Arie’s breeding excellence now brings us Echinacea ‘Southern Belle’, one of the brightest, longest blooming coneflowers to date.  Southern Belle is a hybrid with a few species thrown into the mix, but E. tenneseensis is one of them and therefore it blooms most of the summer, non-stop.

The fully double blooms are the brightest, deepest pink I’ve seen in a while and the ray petals that surround the fluffy pompom center truly resemble the finest tutu – and you all know that’s right up my alley.

Southern Belle gets to be almost three feet tall and wide, so it is the perfect border companion for summer phlox, bee balm, any daisy-like bloom you can find and many other summer blooming perennials. She certainly is the belle of the ball.

We will have samples available for garden writers at the GWAA symposium in Indianapolis this fall, and stage III for the growers as soon as May.  Please let me know if you would like to trial some.  This unusual, brightly colored beauty will dance her way into your heart for sure.