RE: Tony Avent in NYTimes

I like color, too...even zinnias in the summer.  


> [Original Message]
> From: Johnson Cyndi D Civ 95 CG/SCSRT <cyndi.johnson@edwards.af.mil>
> To: gardenchat@hort.net <gardenchat@hort.net>
> Date: 4/6/2006 11:00:48 AM
> Subject: RE: [CHAT] Tony Avent in NYTimes
>
> Thanks for posting that article. 
> He cracked me up with the comment about agapanthus and kniphofia. I've
been
> growing both of those for years. I happily admit to tacky and gaudy
> tendencies with my plants - subtle foliage tucked discreetly in small
> spaces, with flowers you need a magnifying glass to appreciate, is NOT my
> style! 
>
> Cyndi  
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-gardenchat@hort.net [o*@hort.net] On
Behalf
> Of james singer
> Sent: Thursday, April 06, 2006 3:45 AM
> To: Garden Chat
> Subject: [CHAT] Tony Avent in NYTimes
>
> For those who don't peruse the regularly Times, here's this mornings
> article on Tony Avent.
>
> In the Plant Game, Some Bets Are In
>
> By KEN DRUSE
>
> Published: April 6, 2006
>
> TONY AVENT is not too worried about reports that the garden market is
> in decline, or so he would have you believe. Mr. Avent, a co-owner of
> Plant Delights Nursery, a retail and mail-order concern in Raleigh,
> N.C., acknowledged recently that "the slump is real"  after years of
> double-digit sales increases, he said, the business saw a decrease in
> sales of 2.2 percent in 2004 and no growth last year. But "these things
> happen in cycles," he said.
>
> Mr. Avent is relying on his customer base, which he says is made up
> mainly of "collectors" (as opposed to "mainstream" buyers, who frequent
> local nurseries and garden centers, or what he calls the "bottom
> feeders," who buy on impulse at big box stores and home improvement
> outlets) to help him cycle out of the current downturn. Plant Delights
> is one of the country's premier "boutique" nurseries, known, along with
> others like Heronswood in Washington state, Fairweather Gardens in New
> Jersey and Forestfarm in Oregon, for attracting serious gardeners every
> spring with new and unexpected botanical eye candy.
>
> And Mr. Avent, who owns the nursery with his wife, Michelle, has
> developed a reputation among his customers for predicting and even
> setting trends in gardening. In the early 1980's, he took tropical
> houseplants off the windowsill and planted them in outdoor beds and
> containers for summer, creating a craze for frost-tender perennials
> that continues today. In the mid 90's, he bet on hostas, breeding his
> own (and giving them ear-catching names like Elvis Lives, Elephant
> Burgers and Hosta Bubba); they are now among the best-selling
> perennials on the market. And 10 years ago he fell for Arisaema 
> jack-in-the-pulpits  from Asia, contributing to what became a national
> love affair with the plants.
>
> For customers like Mark Veeder, a New York City events planner with a
> garden in Barryville, N.Y., who flew to North Carolina and filled a
> rented truck with plants from the nursery in 2001, it "is a kind of
> mecca." Its huge test garden has more than 17,000 specimens so "you can
> see how the plants grow," he said, and it offers "the newest, most
> sought-after items"  plants that get the collector's heart thumping.
>
> "Our goal is to separate the winners from the losers so our customers
> don't have to," said Mr. Avent, who travels constantly in search of new
> plants, networking with other plant breeders and what are known as
> "sport fishermen" (avid collectors who search out and develop the
> unexpected plant mutations that go unnoticed at commercial nurseries),
> as well as his customers, who are often knowledgeable themselves.
>
> Some of Mr. Avent's newest plants come from nurseries in other
> countries, like England, that are more horticulturally advanced than
> the United States. (Asked to pinpoint the cultural difference, Mr.
> Avent said: "If you're a kid in England and you're not interested in
> gardening, your parents take you to a psychiatrist to find out why. If
> you're a kid in the United States and you're interested in gardening,
> your parents take you to a psychiatrist to find out why.") Two of the
> most promising English imports, he said, are Agapanthus and Kniphofia,
> both of which are already popular on the West Coast.
>
> "They're great, tacky, gaudy plants," Mr. Avent said, "and I think
> that's why they're becoming popular. People are inherently tacky and
> gaudy, and at certain times in history that becomes acceptable."
>
> Other new favorites are hybrids, like the Colocasia, or elephant's-ear,
> that he has been breeding in collaboration with a University of Hawaii
> professor. These rugged tropical plants, often with enormous leaves,
> have been growing in popularity for a few years  perhaps, Mr. Avent
> speculates, because gardeners in temperate climates are drawn to their
> exoticism and to the challenge that growing a tropical plant in a
> temperate climate seems to present. "When you give people something
> they think they can't grow, they love it," he said. He seems confident
> that his new breeds, which are still in development, will have huge
> commercial appeal when they are introduced to the market in the next
> year or so.
>
> Some of Mr. Avent's finds come from the wild and are grown from seed
> and then introduced to the market. "People are always looking for
> something that will take shade and be durable," he said. "That's one
> reason I think wild ginger has tremendous potential," he added of a
> plant that enjoys cult status in Japan but is only beginning to find
> its place in the American market.
>
> Another Avent success story is the Baptisia minor (or Blue Pearls). Ten
> years ago, having witnessed the popularity of the Baptisia australis, a
> widely available, drought-resistant plant with indigo flowers, he made
> repeated trips through the backwoods of the Southeast, from North
> Carolina to Texas, in search of a smaller, more marketable version of
> the species growing in the wild.
>
>   After gathering seeds from 30 different varieties, he found a compact
> one that bloomed in profusion, growing 56 flower spikes on each plant,
> compared with an average of six on a typical wild Baptisia. He
> introduced the new plant to the market last year and already it is so
> popular, he said, that his nursery "can hardly produce it fast enough"
> to keep it in stock.
>
> Still other plants, like the ferns he sees "coming back in," are not
> new but renewed, brought back after decades out of the public eye.
> These plants, infamous as symbols of 1970's dicor, are now selling well
> for outdoor use in shady gardens. (Ferns, like many other plants, he
> noted, move in 30-year fashion cycles.) Mr. Avent has brought back a
> few fern varieties that had been popular Victorian plants, but were
> nearly lost forever.
>
> Mr. Avent is adamant that timing is all when it comes to a plant's
> market potential. Plants have to be novel enough to catch the eye but
> can't stand out so far from the pack that they intimidate consumers.
> His own experience bears this out. He has occasionally been so far
> ahead of the curve that it has taken nearly a full fashion cycle for
> the world to catch up. In 1981, he grew a pineapple lily, or Eucomis,
> from seed that came up with striking purple leaves, instead of the
> usual green. He introduced it to the market as Eucomis Sparkling
> Burgundy, but it did not become a huge success for more than two
> decades.
>
> Mr. Avent is the first to admit that he sometimes errs on the side of
> optimism, particularly when it comes to the cold tolerance of plants.
> "I consider every plant hardy until I have killed it myself," he said.
> "At least three times." He claims that Agave Silver Surfer and Acanthus
> mollis, which have done well in North Carolina, are strong enough to
> survive colder climates farther north, although some gardeners,
> including this one, have not had such luck. (I did have more success
> with the hardier Acanthus hungaricus, which blooms freely in my Zone 6
> garden, where the temperature can drop to as low as minus 10; Mr. Avent
> has it in his display gardens this year.)
>
> Mr. Avent's serious plant collectors, like Mr. Veeder, reject the
> suggestion that the recent downturn in sales may be a sign that
> gardening is falling from favor. "Never," he said. "I still think
> people are longing to connect to each other and feel a sense of
> belonging." Gardening, he said, "creates an occasion to connect with
> people." And Mr. Avent, for his part, is grateful for customers like
> Mr. Veeder, comparing their devotion to the fanaticism of antiques
> collectors. Still, he points to what he sees as a crucial difference.
> "I bought an antique chest, and I've watched it all year," he said. "It
> hasn't grown an inch."
>
>
> Island Jim
> Southwest Florida
> 27.0 N, 82.4 W
> Hardiness Zone 10
> Heat Zone 10
> Minimum 30 F [-1 C]
> Maximum 100 F [38 C]
>
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