Romance Your Plants

I’m going to suggest something you will disagree with, at least at first: Our industry doesn’t think enough about plants.

Now, I realize that a common viewpoint is that our industry is too focused on plants. But I would argue we think about the logistics of selling plants, not the plants themselves. If we want customers to fall in love with our plants, we need to be in love with them ourselves.

Let me explain why I think this way. I’ve seen far too many plant departments that are a sea of benches, with plants organized in alphabetical order. Endcaps occasionally have good displays, but even then the endcap is a place that retailers plop their best looking plants, letting the color alone draw attention.

So, when I was looking for ideas for a plant merchandising article in this issue, I had a hard time thinking of a good subject. I found a good one (see how Bemis’ Farms makes finding container gardening plants easy for customers on page 26). But very few garden centers take the time to put their most important products on display.

Plants Deserve Real Attention

The Garden Center Group’s Robert Hendrickson once said that he feels like garden center merchandisers have a bungee cord attaching their belt to the front door. When they reach the nursery yard door, they get yanked back inside.

I’ve been to a garden center that made its plant yard as exciting visually as its gift departments. Trentham Garden Centre was a stop on consultant Ian Baldwin’s England tour. Indoors, the store was over the top, with a mini river at the entrance and a two-story coliseum-like structure in the middle of the store.

Yet their plant yard outshone those gimmicky and expensive structures. When you stepped outside, there was something to grab your attention in every direction.

It was fall, so there was a huge cornucopia shaped like a chandelier hanging over plant benches. Olive trees hung with small, lit lanterns drew attention to benches of cyclamen. A display of apple trees with free samples of the different varieties were set out.

The store also invested in fixtures for this most important product category. I’m not just talking about traditional plant benches, but glass and chain hanging shelves and props like moveable walls and columns that drew customers further into the plant yard.

No one would mistake Trentham’s plant department for a Home Depot.

This sort of thing can be hard for us to see. Many grew up in a growing family. A group of plants in black plastic pots on a bench was a pretty big step up from a field of plants on a tarp.

But customers are coming from a completely different background. They see a garden as decoration and a place to entertain. They want plants to charm them, to help them create their dream lifestyle.

We’re treating plants like we do loved ones after several years. Once you grow comfortable with someone, you don’t always see him or her with the fresh eyes of when you first fell in love. In those early days, you tried so hard to catch his or her attention, to make the strongest impression you could.

Isn’t it time to inject just a little of that freshness and passion into your plant department?

 

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