Glowing reviews

Illustration: Matt CollinsWhen we introduced the Innovator Award more than a decade ago to honor a retail operation for outstanding contributions to its customers and to the industry, we didn’t realize that we were being … well … innovative.  

Indeed, Garden Center magazine became the first trade publication in the retail market officially to cite a store’s staff in print for using its collective head to get ahead. At the time, our own staff simply thought it was “doing its job.” And what a challenge that job turned out to be – citing one store from among thousands of stellar garden centers dotting the landscape from one coast to the other.

Eventually, other publications began connecting dots of their own, naming stores to various lists that credited outstanding retail operations for separating themselves from the competition by being a variety of things …
… But mainly by being – yep, you guessed it – “innovative.”

So, what makes a garden center – or, as in the case this year, four garden centers – innovative? Actually, there’s no one formula for success, but all successful formulas share one common trait: Happy customers.
 
Last year, we honored innovators who excelled in the areas of customer service, marketing, technology and “green” initiatives. The 2010 winners, not coincidentally, scored high marks in one or more of these areas – all while finding ways to merchandise and to shop, and to prepare for/recover from the two-headed economy/weather monster, and to keep doing the proverbial “(D) All of the above” day after day.

They might even have done some leaping of tall buildings in a single bound, although we can’t confirm that.

This we can confirm: After you read the next four stories, you’ll be more innovative – or, at the very least, more inspired to become so.

Read about:
Gary's Gardens
Blumen Gardens
Stauffers of Kissel Hill
The Garden Corner

Gary's Gardens
A 'can do' retail attitude helps this company push aside common stumbling blocks.

It’s not an uncommon refrain: We would be more innovative if we had the money. And a bigger store. Oh, and a larger staff. Then we could really make something happen. What makes Gary’s Gardens in Severna Park, Md., remarkable is it has created a unique shopping experience without these so-called prerequisites of innovation.

Since the store opened in 2001, Gary and Mary Blondell have more than tripled its profitability. A disciplined approach to business has helped them reach this milestone, which they’ve accomplished on slightly less than an acre of leased land and with a full-time staff of only six people (including them). Gary vividly remembers the lay of the land back in 1999, just before they took over the store.

“There wasn’t much there to work with,” he wryly recalled.

The site was downright poor, in fact. There was nothing more than a barn structure attached to a 60- by 60-foot unheated greenhouse flanked by 30 parking spaces. An old wooden fence served as the only barrier separating the gravel nursery yard from a busy highway. A mountain of mulch on the property attested to the business’s reliance on bulk sales.

Fast forward to 2010, and you’ll find a charming store that’s accessible and bursting with gardening inspiration. Gary and Mary’s 10-year journey from blah to bright—and the many obstacles they’ve overcome—is what earned them a 2010 Innovator Award.

Gaining Ground
Getting the garden center off the ground was a harrowing adventure. Gary and Mary weren’t lacking in experience. Gary had worked on and off in the green industry for nearly 35 years, and has also spent time in advertising and special event fields. He was no stranger to the store he was purchasing, having worked there with the previous owner. Mary had worked in the hospitality industry for 18 years, so she was more than familiar with customer service.

What the couple did lack, however, was startup capital.

“We were very much underfinanced initially,” Gary said. “We found ourselves looking for ‘angel’ investors. A lot of the funds came from a few good Joes who said, ‘we’re going to put the money up.’”

Unsecured capital, of course, comes with a higher cost. Mary noted they also had to use credit cards and grapple with the high interest rate resulting from that.

“At the end of the first year our profit was negative .93 percent,” Mary said. “The second year it was negative 7 percent.”

Gary and Mary knew they had to do something to turn the tide. In 2002, the couple enrolled in Garden Center University, a multi-year program offered through the American Nursery & Landscape Association. Some retailers would balk at committing time and money to education at such a critical point. But it proved to be a key element in Gary’s Gardens success.

“I really believe you’ve got to have the education, you’ve got to have the wherewithal to do these kinds of things and make these decisions,” Gary said. “And you’d better invest up front for [education], before you do anything else. Because any dollars after that, I really think, would be wasted.”

Their GCU education set Gary and Mary on the road to profitability. The lessons they learned there—and networking with other retailers—provided the tools they needed to thrive.

“We’re paying more and more attention to buying better and labor costs,” Mary said. “We watch more closely our cash flow and our margins and margin dollars. You’re always asking, ‘what’s the bottom line, and what are we netting?’”

Getting Better All the Time
One lesson from GCU that hit home was taking 2 percent of the garden center’s annual revenue and sinking it into improvements each and every year. These funds have made the store’s most visible innovations possible. Topping the list is the complete flip-flop of the garden center’s layout, a gutsy move by anyone’s standards. The Blondells changed the color of the main barn structure from red to blue, moved the plant yard to the back of property and created parking spaces at the front of the store. Gary knew they’d be sacrificing visibility. A vista of plants would no longer be seen from the busy highway running in front of the store. But the safety factor was more important to them. In the old layout, Gary and Mary found it difficult to interact with customers due to road noise. Customers with children in tow were particularly nervous, and felt they needed to keep an eagle-eye on the kids.

Other improvements complemented this drastic layout change. Gary and Mary created a brick-paved racetrack through the plant yard and added brick paving inside the greenhouse. Benches and fixtures were also upgraded. And, yes, this was all done on their leased tract of land—a fact Gary is well aware of, but chooses to take in stride. “It’s always in the back of our minds, believe me, it really is,” he said. “We just try to keep doing what we do best.”
Has there been enough payoff to make the investments worthwhile? You be the judge.

“The most common thing we hear is that we’ve created a warm, friendly atmosphere, and it’s fun to be here,” Gary said proudly.

For more: Gary’s Gardens, (410) 544-8787
 

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Blumen Gardens
Like great artwork, this boutique garden center has grown more beautiful over time.

To get to Blumen Gardens you can do some zigging and zagging through a quaint Illinois town known as Sycamore. Or you can stop at the local gas station and ask for directions.

Or – and we much prefer this third option – you can step into a Norman Rockwell painting and ask the first person you see, “where’s the best garden center in the area?”

In art, as in life, the fingers will point toward 405 Edward Street – home to beautiful flowers, charming gift items and happy customers. You’ll also likely find the muse and the artist somewhere in the mix, exchanging “high fives.”

Traditionally, art for gardening’s sake isn’t the major factor in deciding a center’s worthiness as a prospective Innovator Award winner. So, in the name of convention we’ll note that the Blumen Gardens’ management team and staff do stellar work in the areas of merchandising, marketing and sustainability, among others.

Still …

Just look at the pictures. They speak a figurative 3,000 words, almost all of which are testimony to how beautifully innovative – and innovatively beautiful – Blumen Gardens is.

The History
While the store is certainly a work of art, it also has been a work in progress. Chronologically speaking, the first strokes to touch “the canvas” were applied in 1988, when Joel and Joan Barczak purchased a house in Sycamore and proceeded to grow plants on the property to use in the couple’s landscape maintenance and construction business. “The following year we started Blumen Gardens and purchased our first truck,” Joan recalled. “We quickly outgrew our backyard and started renting the lot next to our home to grow plants on. Passersby took note of the plants we were growing and would stop by and ask us gardening questions, so in 1993 we purchased the land and began treating it as a retail space.”

There was an old garage on the land that became the store’s “White Shop,” and the Barczaks started planting display gardens. In 1996 they purchased land on the other side of the block, which became a nursery for growing plants. In 1999 they acquired the brick factory between the two lots, and rented parts of it out to tenants, while converting the other half to more retail space and a workshop for construction crews.

“For 15 years our office remained in the basement of our home,” Joan said. “In 2004, one of our larger tenants moved out of the factory, and we finally moved out of the dark, and reclaimed our home as ours. At that time, we also renovated the area that is now our Tea Room, used as an event rental space. While we continue to improve and remodel the shopping areas that we have, we also hope to acquire more of the land and factory that we currently still rent from the city.”

Signature Features
Joan said she and Joel are particularly proud of three facets of the business, starting with the largely “native-centric” plants that proved the genesis of the company. “The gardens and ‘gardening’ is what we started with, and that’s what keeps us going,” she said.

Then there’s the brick-created at the aforementioned brick factory – which visually creates the backdrop for most of the center’s structures, and which blends with the paths and walkways constructed of brick pavers that came from a local vendor. “The brick adds character and a strong foundation to design and decorate around,” she said.

Finally, there’s “The Pond,” a small water feature alive with tadpoles in spring and water plants in summer. “It has become a main attraction for kids that come by to feed the fish,” Joan said. “And the small waterfall provides movement and relaxation.”

The Sum of the Parts
Separately, the elements that comprise Blumen Gardens are beautiful. In total they are a veritable sanctuary. Creating this “oasis,” as one shopper recently tabbed the store, has been a process, too.
 
“In some ways it is so simple – we create a look that we like, and if we don’t like something, we do it over and over until we do,” Joan said. “It has taken some time to develop a staff that is like-minded, but we would never have what we do without the group of people that bring their sense of design and creativity to our shop. Part of our look, too, has been developed from an economic standpoint. We like antiques, but also just have a lot of old ‘stuff.’ We recycle these props over and over to create new displays, finding new functions for old objects.”

In many ways, Blumen Gardens is an extention of the Barczak home. Since the store is located in an older neighborhood, Joan and Joel have done little to modify the look of the original structures on the site; they remain as they have been for more than 100 years. “In fact,” Joan said, “the factory dates back to 1869, before our home, and many residential lots on our block. Because the old industrial lot is now surrounded by gardens, it maintains a backyard feel. We purposefully avoid banners, and signage that would give it a commercial look, so that even as it grows, it still feels like you happened upon an avid gardener that lives on your block.”

For more: Blumen Gardens, (815) 895-3737; www.BlumenGardens.com

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Stauffers of Kissel Hill
A determined team charts a course to turn good ideas into concrete results.

In business, there’s usually no shortage of good ideas. What’s typically lacking is the wherewithal to put these concepts into practice. Stauffers of Kissel Hill (SKH), a family-owned chain of garden centers and supermarkets in Pennsylvania, uses a team approach to plot a course that keeps the business moving ahead.

What’s makes SKH noteworthy, though, is its determination to maintain forward momentum despite obstacles. Two recent projects—SKH’s Recession Action Plan and the redevelopment of its Rohrerstown location—show how this 78-year-old business keeps pushing aside roadblocks. Fierce determination and business savvy helped the team at Stauffers of Kissel Hill earn a Garden Center Innovator Award.

Recession Action Plan
The economy was top-of-mind for SKH going into 2009. The company created a Recession Action Plan to guide business for the year. Like most companies, they implemented cost-cutting measures and wage freezes across the board. What they didn’t skimp on, however, was marketing. In that realm, it was full speed ahead.

Jere Stauffer and Steve Gallion, chief operating officers of the company’s garden center division, kept thinking of something Gallion and Debi Drescher, SKH marketing manager, had heard at ANLA Management Clinic: The consumer is in a state of “aggressive indecision.”

“Consumers don’t know whether to spend money or what,” Gallion said. “You have to do something to move them to a buying decision. What we chose to do was a pretty aggressive coupon campaign and tried to move people into making that buying decision.”

SKH sent direct-mail postcards to more than 300,000 homes, which included a coupon for $10 off merchandise with a minimum $25 purchase. Amazingly, the company saw an almost 10 percent redemption rate on the coupon.

“We basically said to the customer, here’s $10 just for coming in,” Stauffer said. “Our average sale [with coupon] was just shy of $60.”

According to Stauffer, you could say SKH was almost hyper-aggressive in its marketing efforts. But he justifies the strategy by recalling something he learned from his father…

“I remember him saying years ago that you have to approach marketing like the locomotive on a long freight train,” Stauffer said. “You can get that train up and rolling, then whip the locomotive off the front. And that train is going to roll for a while, but sooner or later it’s going to roll to a stop. And you’re going to have to put all your energy into getting that train back up to speed. So why not keep the locomotive in the lead and keep that momentum going? That’s marketing.”

By all accounts, this advice has paid off.

“We’re waiting on the final numbers,” Stauffer said. “But we have every indication right now that we’ve had a very dramatic recovery. The moves that we made were the right direction to go.”

Renovation Realities
In the midst of the recession, Stauffers of Kissel Hill was undergoing major redevelopment at its Rohrerstown, Pa., location. The company built a new 78,000-square-foot supermarket on the site and remodeled the garden center. The redesign of the outside plant yard and loading areas was completed in 2008. In spring 2009, remodeling of the 30,000-square-foot garden-retail store was finished.

The interior renovation, especially, was not without challenges. Jere Stauffer was attempting to transform the old grocery store into a garden center. His initial budget was between $800,000 and $900,000. They were planning “the works”—new flooring, lighting, a new flower shop, space for casual furniture vignettes, etc. But improvements to the store’s exterior were more costly than anticipated, and the entire project was at risk of going over budget. Stauffer was asked to scale back his plans and keep the price tag around $300,000.

To pull off the project, the entire SKH team rolled up their sleeves and got creative. Store employees lent contractors a hand with painting. One of the nursery employees turned out to be a pretty darn good carpenter, and helped with some trim and finish work. Together, they dramatically changed the look and feel of the store.

“At first, losing more than half of your budget is a sucker punch,” Stauffer said. “But then you gather your resolve and say, ‘This is not going to get us down.’ We’re going to create the most inviting space we can. Having looked back on it now, yes, there are pieces we would’ve like to have had. But I don’t think it would’ve gotten me another quarter-million dollars [in sales revenue]. It isn’t what I dreamed. It wasn’t the ‘wow’ I envisioned. But, doggone, from a business standpoint, it was the right thing to do.”

For more: Stauffers of Kissel Hill; www.skh.com

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The Garden Corner
Welcome to a garden-amusement park that could easily be called 'Six Flags Over Taxus.'

During Day III of last summer’s GCA Tour of the Great Northwest, two busloads of eager industry pros were treated to a series of impromptu previews regarding the third stop of the morning:

“This next one is different.”

“You’ve never seen a store quite like The Garden Corner.”

“Jonn’s place is unique. I can’t wait to hear what you think of it.”

OK, the wait is over …

And we will see their “different and unique” and raise them an “Innovator Award winner.”

No, wait! That’s not enough. We will raise our raise and even throw the trump card, the only word worthy to describe the retail operation nestled in the pristine forested area on the edge of Tualatin, Ore.:

“Shaz-am!” 

For those who don’t speak Gomer Pyle, that means “Wow to the nth degree!” That’s basically what we said, over and over, during our tour of the world’s first amusement park for gardeners.

A Feast for the Senses
Each journey at The Garden Corner – every visit is a literal journey – starts on a mostly uncovered trail that winds throughout the premises, providing visitors with sights and sounds presented in entirely fresh ways and contexts.

The plants, the gifts, the apparel items, the proverbial “what have you” dotting the snaking pathway all suddenly morph from inventory into ideas. And then ideas transform into sales.

And then owner Jonn Karsseboom and his clever and affable staff – if there’s any justice, anyway – get to live happily ever after, because this is the kind of store that begets stories that deserve that kind of ending, whenever the tale concludes.

But we’re getting way ahead of ourselves. The Garden Corner is just hitting its stride, largely because, almost from day one, innovation set the tone.

Making Lemonade
Karsseboom said The Garden Corner came to be what it is largely out of necessity – sometimes even desperation.
Opened in 1999, the center took a defining turn early into its existence when conventional urban planning went south – or, technically, north and east. “We are the typical story of a garden center established some time ago at the outskirts of what once was a small town,” Karsseboom recalled. “Normally the business district then begins to grow closer and include the garden center. In our case, we became surrounded by residential on three sides and an industrial park on the last side. We’re not smart enough to move, and currently, as someone once said, to find us you would have to be completely lost first.”

The old adage about “Location!” ushered out the door, The Garden Corner faced a significant challenge: What do you do when you’re not the most conveniently located nursery and landscape supply source – especially in an area of the country with plenty of conveniently located nursery and supply sources?

Karsseboom and his oh-so-keen staff decided to create an experience that’s worth the effort to get to 21550 S.W. 108th Ave. – wherever that is. Hence, the winding trail. And the eclectic selection of gift items. And the evolving set of surprises at almost every turn. Even the sign directing folks to the restrooms is innovative – there’s a life-size picture of a fellow in need of relief pointing the way.

Group Hug
Without question, the man “behind the curtain” at The Garden Corner knows his wizardry. Karsseboom won’t claim to be that guy, however. “Our look and feel is consistent only because of our small crew of unique individuals,” the owner said. “We are completely addicted to new ideas and love to experiment with many new concepts.”

A few of those ideas and concepts are pictured here. Almost all of what appears at the garden center is the product of collaboration. The Garden Corner mantra: The sum is bigger than the parts – but the parts are pretty darned important. Every staffer contributes ideas. Everyone asks, “What if …?” Everyone also poses another important question. “We love to ask, ‘why not?’” Karsseboom said.

Ultimately, though the owner signs off on what is purchased or displayed, the purchase or the display are the brainchild of a staff member who asked that very question – and then couldn’t get anyone on staff to put up a viable argument. Like the store, the process isn’t conventional, but it has proven extremely successful for achieving “The Garden Corner feel.”

“We aren’t large enough to have separate buyers and merchandisers, so once we find a theme we want to run with we actually buy to that theme,” Karsseboom said. “And when we buy an item the questions of how many can we sell at what price is considered, along with, ‘Does it help our theme, and is it enough to create a display?’ All those criteria have to be met.”

Once that happens, so does something special, especially in the spring, when the doors open – or, would open, if there were doors to open.

For more: The Garden Corner, (503) 885-1934; www.thegardencorner.com

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