Re: Proven Whatever

**D* C* <d*@juno.com>**

On Wed, 12 May 2004 14:07:27 -0700 "Stephen Lamphear"
<stephen.lamphear@comcast.net> writes:
> "Proven Marketing" is more accurate than anything else I've read.

I think that's probably true, but I think it's a good thing.

The average enthusiast or small company that develops a new plant, even a
traffic stopper, doesn't have the skills or the reach to market it well.
The result is that great plants go largely unknown except to the most
demented ... I mean dedicated gardeners. So, for example, despite the
incredible heucheras that have been developed in the last decade, KMart
still has a shelf full of Palace Purple, a great plant a quarter century
ago, but now?

The old paradigm is someone like Goldsmith Seed. I have kept their
impatiens ... I forget the name right now, but it has a very dark leaf
with pink flowers that just jump out of the dusky foliage  [Midnight
Rose, I think]. I've kept it going for years.  Everyone who visits (and
God help me, I have the Lady Whittemore club coming tomorrow, whatever
that is) wants to know where to get it. And there's the problem. I don't
know. I've never seen it on a bench I mentioned it in columns, but not as
much as I'd like to because people can't get it.

OTOH, Tesselaar's Tropicanna canna has been around for years under a
different name, but no one knew about it. The only people who bought it
were enthusiasts, the market was small, so the price was high. Now this
knock-out plant is in big box stores at 7.95 for a two gallon pot.
Tesselaar also has a bicolor hosta that slugs spit back out and pot-sized
phlox that laugh at mildew. In the olden days, these plants would go
unnoticed for years, even decades. But good marketing puts good plants in
average gardeners' hands at a decent price.

As far as I'm concerned, bring on the marketers.

D

I am Duane Campbell and I approve this message

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