Power of the People

In January, we launched our 20th anniversary issue with a bang, sharing articles we compiled from the magazine’s first year to get a picture of what the independent garden center industry was like in 1995. We are continuing the celebration in February by interviewing people who have been in the industry for two decades or more. We spoke to garden center owners, consultants, marketing and merchandising managers and association leaders to get a diverse perspective about how the business has changed and what the next 20 years will bring. The insightful responses ran the gamut, and the conversation wasn’t just about the Internet and technology. We’ve included responses from four of the questions we asked. Look for more complete versions of the interviews online at gardencentermag.com.

Interviews conducted and edited by Michelle Simakis and Karen E. Varga

What has changed the most in the industry during the past 20 years?

FOERTMEYER: The one that first came to my mind when I thought about this question was the branding of plants. I think it was in the early ’90s when Proven Winners hit the scene. They brought the concept, at least in my world, there may have been others around at the same time doing the same thing; but for me, Proven Winners brought branding to the forefront of our industry. And that has had significant impact on our industry.

HILLERMANN MCDONALD: Twenty years ago, the lawn, garden and horticulture industry was booming for us. So we bit the bullet and built a brand new facility in 2000. Then the economy tanked and things went south in a hurry. We are not where we were five years ago, but things are coming back nicely again. The customer is changing. We’re seeing the younger generation going back to their grandparents’ roots, the foodie things. [Creating] their own gardens and outdoor rooms are becoming more important because people are staying at home more.

ALBIN: People had an interest in experimenting with new things. There was a real willingness to try new things, and now there is somewhat less of a willingness to try new things. It has swung the other way to the point that, beyond new product introductions and plants, there are less new things that are happening at the retail level.

STORY: When I started about 20 years ago, new plant species and genetics started popping up that were really revolutionary and exciting and honestly, really different. There was really some [consumer] interest because you were finally giving people options that weren’t begonias and impatiens. You had something truly unique to offer people. And then that stopped, and we haven’t seen any really hugely new genetics hit the market recently. I miss that. I always want to flip the page and see something I’ve never seen before.

RAISCH: The most significant change without a doubt was the introduction of tender perennials or specialty annuals. This literally changed the game, opening up an entire new or at least greatly repositioned merchandise category. This began in most areas with Proven Winners and several important products such as sweet potato vine and calibrachoa, then quickly went beyond the PW brand and is typically called 4-inch or 4 ½-inch specialty annuals. Today this category is mature and has flattened due largely to price competitiveness and a perceived price ceiling of $4.99 in most markets.

WATKINS: The interest in perennials. Shrubs and trees were always the mainstay and you had your foundation in perennials. But the real love of perennials and the expanding desire of home gardeners to have the coolest, newest thing has grown.

FOUSHEE: When you wanted plants, you went to a garden center, and now there are plants on every street corner and at every grocery store. The amount of competition for the plant dollar is probably the biggest change that we’ve seen.

MONROE: From a retail standpoint, it’s the fact that the industry has moved from being a mom-and-pop industry - very much a grower-retailer type model - to now the boxes have such a dominant role. The corporate feel of the garden industry didn’t exist until maybe the late ’80s or early ’90s. It’s been such a change in how the industry is run and who the players are.

COURTRIGHT: I think most nurserymen who have survived have become better businesspeople as well as nurserymen. It seems in the last 10 years, we’ve all learned to operate our garden centers with less employees. One of the important things that I always look at is when I bought my garden center 40-some-odd years ago, the former owner told me, “You know, Tom, the longer I’ve been in business, the harder it is to raise prices because I can remember when things were a lot less money.” Through the years, I have to keep reminding myself of that. Adapting to change, no matter what, is another major thing we all need to recognize, but the plant palate has changed tremendously.
 

What are some of the most significant trends you've seen?

RAISCH: Over the past 20 years, color was definitely the most significant trend. It is a major part of what the industry is today when measured by sales revenue. A trend that went away was any introduction of fad merchandise into garden centers. The last one was Topsy Turvy tomato planter and this was shared with box stores. The amazing shrinking garden hose went direct to box stores and that’s what I expect any future fad items to do. And that is not a bad thing in my opinion because it removes temptation to move away from a focus from our core business.

HILLERMANN MCDONALD: For us, this was swimming pool chemicals and women’s accessories. When we were in the pool business, we did water testing and everything was chlorine based. Now that people are going to salt-based swimming pools, people don’t use chemicals so we can’t sell those products. We have replaced these departments with beer-brewing and wine-making products and classes. We brought that in a year ago this winter, and that has been fairly phenomenal for us. It’s a younger demographic getting into that, but I am surprised that the people who are picking up supplies here are of all ages.

FOERTMEYER: Again, I have to go back to plant branding. It helped consumers identify with a specific brand tied to our industry. The other thing that happened consequently is the people who were at the beginning of plant development, the folks who are out there looking for that plant, literally out in mountains and deserts and forests, looking for plants that they can bring back and start breeding. Branding unleashed that in a greater way. That always was growing on, but it made more sense for the plant breeders to embrace those opportunities. All of a sudden we had people working on plants, and better plants, and more consumer-friendly plants. Better performing plants, plants that were easier to grow.

ALBIN: The plant container and the packaging because both of those things made this product seem approachable and actually made that product accessible to a lot of different consumers. Being able to put a plant in a plastic pot and being able to have that plastic pot sold anywhere in the country the first day of May. Having a sales tag on it so there wasn’t always the necessity to have a sales person there to sell it.

MONROE: The thing that is so shocking is that for decades we watched a decline in people’s interest in vegetable gardening. Your grandparents or parents or whoever, everyone had a vegetable garden. Between the late ‘60s almost until 2000 or later, there was a decline in the interest of people wanting to vegetable garden. No one would have had any idea that it would ever have done anything other than continue to decline, because food was so much more accessible and less expensive, in the last five to 10 years especially. The interest in vegetable gardening is an explosion. We get young families in here every day that want to have a garden for the first time.
 

What will this industry look like in the future?

FOUSHEE: We’re going to continue to lose more of the small mom-and-pop, family-owned retail facilities as the Home Depots and Lowes continue their efforts, along with other retailers. And I think a lot of that is due to some of the new generation of gardeners, it’s harder to attract them. We have a great base of customers out there, they are Baby Boomers, they’re older. It’s going to be a challenge to continue to attract the younger generation and get them to come where you are.

MONROE: I think that the Buy Local movement is not going anywhere, and the concern people have over food quality and safety for their kids is not going to go away. The opportunities for local businesses to really excel by providing those kinds of services to the local community — I think you’ll see less box business and more independent business growth in the next 20 years.

COURTRIGHT: I think the industry has a bright future as long as we can adapt. Change and adapt. We really do need to see housing starts across the country come back. People building new homes and landscaping new homes will really fuel the industry well.

FOERTMEYER: The industry is going to split at the retail level. We’re going to have the traditional model of independent garden centers. The big footprint garden centers with everything imaginable will still exist, but I think they’ll be on the decline. I do think that we’re going to have much smaller footprint retail plant stores that will be in more highly populated urbanized areas. I think there will be a boom for houseplants... and plants used more as decorative items.

HILLERMANN MCDONALD: The customer will not be as loyal as they have been in the past. It’s all about service, quality and price — and referrals. I anticipate the movement now of home entertaining, urban gardening, family food production, and the need for education will still be prevalent.

ALBIN: I think the industry in the next 20 years will be somewhere between the next version of Amazon and the next version of Uber. There will probably be plant stores, but I don’t know if those plant stores will exist the same way that we see them now. For manufacturers and growers who are in this product category, it’s no longer easy for one size fits all. People, whether they are at the retail or landscape or grower level, really have to be thinking about the way their product fits next to the consumer.

RAISCH: I could not even venture a guess as to where the industry will be 20 years out. How plants will reach buyers and in what form will they want them can only be a guess — and a wild one at that — because of so many rapid changes in computerization, mechanization and distribution to mention only the major areas. We tend to think more about the impact of the Internet and retail sales channels, but those are only a part of the picture, and we’re overlooking the operational basics of how a business functions.

By 2020, our business will be like almost all others in that 50 percent or more of them will no longer be in business. This is due to aging out of the current owners. We see this happening on an almost daily basis with announcements of business closings and consolidations. I look for the trend to accelerate in the next two years simply because there are many owners who have begun looking for their best exit plan, and where the mind goes, the body soon follows.
 

What do garden centers need to do to ensure their viability for the next 20 years?

STORY: They need to make gardening as easy as possible. These weekend projects you get people hooked on, you have to make it easy and fool proof. And clean. Somehow you have to find a way to sanitize gardening to get people started, then you can start dirtying them up bit by bit.

FOERTMEYER: Garden center owners will need to become a lot more aware of what’s coming and what these next generations want. They need to figure out how to get ahead of that and design their stores around that and design their product mix around that and design their service to accommodate that…There needs to be a line on everybody’s expense budget that points to understanding the market ahead and then designing our marketing and our offering around that. It can’t just be once every couple of years, five years, 10 years; it needs to be an annual expense, just like the electricity bill.

RAISCH: Secure their physical location - land use, water, signage, drainage, the works. Take nothing for granted.

Secure their staff - people availability and wage expenses are going to be more problematic, and they’re already at critical levels. Don’t assume people will be available or that the costs of employment (including owners) will be anywhere near what it is now.

Secure their supply chain - a pretty important fundamental of this business is that you have to have stuff to sell, and there are fewer suppliers that are going to be around.

Secure their customers.

HILLERMANN MCDONALD: We must stay prevalent, stay up front of the customer and community, stay focused to trends not only in our industry, and keep educating [about] the benefits of plants in our lives.

ALBIN: Retailers have to figure out how to move away from the crunch of Mother’s Day and look at other ways that products could be presented and be prepared because we’re so focused on Mother’s Day right now.

FOUSHEE: I think one of the reasons that we have continued to be successful is because we offer it all, but at the same time we have a niche market for perennials and herbs, and that has allowed us to bring in about 60 percent of our customers from outside of the county. That’s what we have to continue to do is find the things that you’re going to find everywhere else.

WATKINS: I think also most of us really love plants, and we want to see and grow and play with the newest stuff. [Our customers] know we tend to have perennials and shrubs you can’t find anywhere else because we’re all a bunch of plant geeks. There is a passion for plants and gardening that keeps us having the stuff that customers want.