Re: succulents

I can honestly tell you that, while you are right about Lowe's and WalMart, the Home Depot where I work depends on the garden department to carry the store. We get awesome plants, mostly from local growers. The tropicals and succulents do come from Florida and Texas, but the shrubs and trees come predominately from Tennessee and South Carolina. My store might be unique, but I try very hard to "create the fantasy" that we are special. I have no qualms about referring customers to our locally owned nurseries (probably because I know a lot of those owners personally), and we also do a huge business with landscape contractors along with less knowledgable gardeners. I'm not sure the Home Depot was ready for my non-box store approach, but I can prove on paper that it's working. I really believe it's part of my responsibility to educate potential gardeners and not to simply sell suff to them, and I've encouraged lots of customers to get involved with local plant societies and certainly to visit the Mempis Botanic Garden. No one mentions the resident cats any more since we had no rodent or sparrow damage last winter. And now children come to our nursery specifically to play with Alphonse, the big male. I'm still having a great time. 
zem
zone 7
West TN
----- Original Message ----- From: "David Franzman" <dfranzma@pacbell.net> 
To: <gardenchat@hort.net>
Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2008 2:29 PM
Subject: [CHAT] succulents



Hi Noreen

I know exactly what you are saying.  What was once rare is no
longer really rare in the market place however the folks with money are quite often the collectors who are willing to pay a premium for fine plant material from reputable growers. For the greater number of consumers who can't really tell the difference between a succulent and a woody shrub they shop at where ever they can get the least expensive material in the largest pot. Since the big box stores use plants as a lost leader to bring in customers the smaller growers are really having a hard time. Rare plants is one way they are trying 
to stay in the business without selling their souls to Lowes and Walmart.
David

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE GARDENCHAT


---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE GARDENCHAT
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index