Lowe's and HD report

Hi Perennial People,

Tonight between appointments, Ed and I got stuck with two hours in the city 
to occupy.  A new Lowe's opened here this week. This is the first in our area 
for this chain.  We drove over to look at the garden shop and greenhouse.  
Here is what we found (many of you already know this chain), a state of the 
art Lowe's, statement from the garden shop manager herself.

They have no greenhouse.  Greenhouses are going away, at least in the 
Northeast in new stores.  The manager is a pleasant woman with a four year 
degree in horticulture, (where DID she come from?).  This big silver and 
white store is selling pots and bagged products in their big impressive open 
air selling space which looks like a series of greenhouses with sides open.  
It is very cold out there.  This may be a bit of a stretch for upstate NY ( 
open air selling in January) but then one can't have everything.  I was the 
only one in this part of the shop.

The news is that this space is equipped with automatic overhead sprinklers 
and roving tanks that can aim at sections of the space.  It can water at 
different intervals in specific sections.  It can spray at night when closed 
(pesticides) and ventilate with fans in the walls (which are open air).  
Plant care is carefully planned.  The manager will have ordering power and 
will not be bound by the chain group orders at all times.  She has a long 
list of suppliers to use and may purchase locally.  They swear, absolutely 
swear the era of plants dead by nightfall of the arrival day is over.  She 
can hire her own staff.  She was not 21 years old and I wished her luck.

Then we visited HD for more shear pins for the snowblowers (only the 
snowbound can love this) and I looked in on their greenhouse.  There are four 
of these giants I can reach equally easily.  Tonight's visit was the usual.  
If there was a greenhouse treasure there today, somebody beat me to it.  
Water ran over the floors and near the exit it was ice.

Lowe's has seedracks in place and partially stocked.  HD shares a manager 
with mowers and machines of that sort.  He likes talking machines, no seeds 
here.

I have been, the last two years, buying zinnia seeds all winter. I put them 
all together, my selections by color, and sow them in a raised bed.  The 
entire bed is zinnias, all kinds.  My insurance against drought.  This always 
blooms, never fails and I can look at zinnia seeds all winter.  I got a great 
purple tonight and some white that say they are really white.  In the 
Northeast in January, you can be convinced of anything on a seed packet.

These stores are too large for me and I cannot love them because walking ten 
miles to buy a lightbulb keeps me away.  Still everyone inspects both every 
spring and probably get their petunias there.  Lowe's, open three days, had 
many clearance items in the garden shop.

Conclusion might be that we will look here for supplies from time to time but 
plants will still be from plantsmen.

Claire Peplowski
NYS z4

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