Aconitum (color sells)

**"* F* <c*@mail.com>**

- For garden communicators this thread brings a challange.  How to respond to an industry whose motto is "Color Sells."  Many 
good plants are often unavailable because they aren't in bud in the garden center.  (I heard someone from the box stores once say 
"If it's not in bloom, we have no room."  He proudly felt that the decision to only stock plants in flower was good business.) Others, 
such as the daylilies Melanie mentioned, won't make it to market at all because their size is outside the norm.   And there are those 
who want fast-food plants.  At the garden center where I work, many customers see the baptesia in the demonstration garden and 
say "I want that!  Where are those?" but they'll change their mind when they see three or four thin baptesia stems in the pot... if they 
can't have the mature size plant right now, they don't want it at all.   

I don't intend this post to be moaning about box stores or customers who want instant gardens... I want your thoughts on how we, as 
garden communicatiors, can continue to encourage people to ask for and buy the plants that are not in bloom, or those that take a 
few years to mature.  It comes back, I think, to keeping people interested and excited enough so that they will become gardeners not 
just garden consumers.  

C.L. Fornari
www.gardenlady.com
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