Re: ECON marketing through nurseries

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My suggestion for making iris available through local nurseries involved the grower selling direct to a middleman who would package and distribute the product. Such a middle man would probably test market the iris over one or several regions on a two or three year plan, making sure that they were on the shelves at the correct time for planting. The grower would incur no risk because he would have received his money up front. Nurseries like Sutton's sell many iris for as little as $3.00. Certainly that is a price that would permit the middleman a good profit without being too expensive for the public. The notion of the grower himself doing the packaging and distributing is probably not economical -- as Schreiner's seems to have discovered.

AIS efforts to educate the public reach only a tiny fraction of people who have yards with plants in them in this country. I only know AIS exists because I subscribed for a while to Horticulture -- and most people don't. I am nearly 60 and have never seen a notice for an AIS event. The best way to educate the public is to make the product easily available with appropriate planting and cultivation instructions.

People like to buy their annuals in bloom. But most of the plants they buy, including vast numbers of trees, shrubs, and bare root roses are not in bloom.

Julia Rankin