Greetings from Portland, Oregon

Ed Blatter refers to Portland, Ore., as a “growing paradise.” The ideal climate has also reflected sales for his garden center, Cornell Farm. “2014 was the best selling season since we opened 28 years ago,” he says. “We don’t have to sell to anybody. It doesn’t take much to get customers geared up about planting their yards.” Even so, diversification is important in this green city. We visited five Portland-area garden centers this past fall to discover their innovative ideas. We learned how they attract and cater to eco-conscious residents who strive to “Keep Portland Weird” — and planted.
 

The Garden Corner

21550 SW 108th Ave.
Tualatin, OR 97062
www.thegardencorner.com

Founded: 2000
Retail locations: 1

Innovative idea: The Garden Corner is home to the largest hanging basket in the world, according to co-owner Jonn Karsseboom. He says he didn’t build the 16-foot-tall, 12-foot-wide structure for the publicity, however, and never contacted Guiness World Records to confirm. “We never did it as a marketing trick. What it really came from is that several years prior, [my wife and co-owner Tracy] decided to specialize in just one thing, and that is hanging baskets. So we started developing hanging baskets, and it was just a natural progression. One night my wife and I were daydreaming and said, ‘What would the world’s largest hanging basket look like?’” The basket, now a reality, weighs 2 tons and spins on a motor, and according to Google, it’s the world’s largest. “We just installed the motor [in September] because people were missing it,” he says. Staff at the garden center replants the 3-year-old giant basket each season.

Eco focus: Karsseboom and his wife started the business creating hanging baskets for cities. They developed a 3-gallon water reservoir to help conserve the resource and save clients time and money.

Trends: Experimentation defines The Garden Corner. Karsseboom plants in old Volkswagen hubcaps, rocks and other found objects. In addition to being home of the largest hanging basket, The Garden Corner may perhaps have the world’s smallest suspended containers, too, which fit into the palm of a hand.

Quotable: Jonn Karsseboom: “What is a ‘Garden Rebel?’ Garden rebels garden against all odds. Some have terminal illnesses, some have broken bodies, they’re busy moms, yet against all odds, they still find time to garden.”

Down to Earth Home, Garden & Gift

532 Olive Street
Eugene, Oregon 97401
www.downtoearthhomeandgarden.com

Founded: 1977
Retail locations: 2

Innovative idea: Down to Earth’s location is one aspect that makes it special. Its Olive Street store is housed in an old feed mill built in 1923. Remnants of the facility that operated through the ’80s are still very much present — the Douglas fir floors are original, a pulley hangs above the birding and pet section and there’s an old checkered tower that is visible from the main road. The store is in the heart of Eugene, and it very much caters to its small-space gardeners. The home, gift and décor section fills much of the space, and there is a small outdoor area with annuals, perennials, trees and shrubs.

Eco focus: Down to Earth got its start in the ’70s selling garden amendments. They’ve since expanded the soil line, and all packaging is natural and compostable. They also sell potted Christmas trees so that they can be planted after the season instead of thrown away. Mini citrus trees and edible ornamentals continue to be popular for their urban customers.

Trends: To cater to the foodies, Down to Earth started offering beer- and cheese-making supplies and fermentation kits. Down to Earth also strives to source products close to Eugene because buying locally made items is important to customers.

Al’s Garden Centers and Greenhouses

16920 SW Roy Rogers Road
Sherwood, OR 97140
www.als-gardencenter.com

Founded: 1948 RETAIL
Retail locations: 3
Annual sales: $15.9 million

Innovative idea: Al’s Garden Centers and Greenhouses grows much of its own product, which gives the company greater control of inventory and prices. On our visit Oct. 31, 2014, Al’s had sold 49,000 pumpkins, and there were still a few left on the field. “To make a point with them [the first year], we went out at 99 cents a pumpkin,” says Jack Bigej, CEO of Al’s. In 2014, pumpkins were $1.99 no matter what size. “We can do some pretty ridiculous things sometimes, price-wise.” While other area garden centers were selling them by the pound, customers could get any size they wanted at Al’s, which meant a greater profit for the garden center.

When the Sherwood location first opened in 2005 on a 10.5-acre site “in the middle of nowhere,” Jack says, his family employed some creative marketing tactics to build anticipation for the store. “We had a 4-by-8-foot sign outside that said, ‘The purple people are coming.’ And that’s all it said,” Bigej says. Jack’s son Mark chimed in. “And another one read, ‘What’s Bigger Than a Breadbox, Green and Purple All Over, And Covered in Flowers? You’ll Know Soon. Opening 2005.’” They also grew 10,000 pansies and planted them in 5-inch pots with the label, “Coming soon to your area, Al’s Garden Center.” They hired youth baseball teams to help deliver them to potential customers’ doorsteps.

Eco focus: “All of our edibles have always been GMO-free,” says Mark Bigej. “But this last year we started marketing that. In order to back up the claim, we switched our suppliers of seed to a seed company that was all non-GMO. And so in doing that we had to change over some of our varieties.”

Trends: Gardeners in the area are swapping bedding plants for containers more often, says Jack Bigej. They prefer small space gardening to mass plantings. “The average Joe lives in the city, crammed into a little box,” he says. “Cleveland blows my mind. Every yard is an acre or two. And they mow the whole darn thing. Angelo [Petitti of Petitti’s Garden Centers] will sell a hundred times more fertilizer than we do. [Customers] buy a bag here and it lasts them two years because their lawn only is about that [spreads arms apart] big.”

Quotable: Jack Bigej: “The Woodburn store opened in 1948 as a fruit stand. It has evolved very slowly, but here we are after 65 years.”

Read Profiles in Power of the January 2015 issue for more about Al’s Garden Center and Greenhouses

Cornell Farm

8212 SW Barnes Road
Portland, OR 97225
www.cornellfarms.com

Founded: 1987
Retail locations: 1
Annual sales: $2.5 million

Innovative idea: Co-owner Ed Blatter, along with his father and grandfather, grew up in the historic house that is now part of the business. Built in 1927, it was one of the few historic homes left in the county. A monkey puzzle tree planted by Blatter’s grandparents now towers over the structure. The cozy home is used for workshops, but Blatter and his wife and co-owner, Deby Barnhart, are considering opening a café inside and offering the space to companies that want to rent rooms for off-site meetings. Upstairs bedrooms now house offices, and the home has been used to store catered food at weddings hosted on the home’s back patio or in the nursery’s first greenhouse, a 68-foot long structure that is now used for plant displays. One of Blatter’s daughters Ranann has a degree in therapeutic horticulture, which inspired the Blatters to build a therapeutic garden behind the house. Once complete, they plan to host programs in the garden for children, seniors and people with disabilities.

Eco focus: Cornell Farm grows 75 percent of the plant stock sold at the garden center, and all plants are grown in organic soil.

Trends: Houseplants have been huge for Cornell Farm. Blatter’s daughter Berkeley, who has a degree in merchandising and worked at Anthropologie, has managed that growing section of the business. Extremes are the trends in this area: big, established tropicals and tiny air plants attract the most attention.

Read more about Cornell Farm’s houseplants section on page 98 of the January 2015 issue of Garden Center magazine.

Portland Nursery

5050 SE Stark Street
Portland, OR 97215
www.portlandnursery.com

Founded:1907 wholesale/1982 retail
Locations: 2
Annual sales: $11.4 million

Innovative idea: Portland Nursery takes full advantage of the container gardening craze with its “Container of the Month” program, launched in 2007. As the name suggests, each month the nursery creates a themed container with seasonal (and popular) plants. Customers can buy premade containers, they can ask a staff member to build the container garden for them or they can use one of Portland Nursery’s recipe cards and fully stocked craft table to make the container themselves at the store. That way, they don’t have to bring the mess home. Recipe cards that look like paint-by-numbers boards guide customers; plants correspond to different numbers and are mapped out so gardeners know exactly where to place plants. It’s a structured, DIY project.

“Plant swapping is OK,” says Sara Ori, head of marketing for Portland Nursery, and ready-made pots run anywhere from $35 to more than $150, depending on the pottery. “It’s a good tool for getting people involved in the off season,” Ori says. “It’s most successful in the fall and winter when there’s not much else to do in the garden and people want something to make their entryways look nice.”

Archives of all monthly containers are available online, so customers have other options if they don’t like the current pick. “We use plants that we have a lot of, because it helps them to sell.”

Eco focus: To help repopulate distressed bee colonies, Portland Nursery offers live orchard mason bees and the necessary supplies to house this native pollinator. Mason bee “season” is December through March, so it’s another great way to attract shoppers during the off season, and they offer classes on raising the bees.

Trends: Edibles sales are strong. “We bring in younger people with [cooking] classes and our selection of edibles. It’s the first thing that engages them in gardening,” says General Manager Suzy Hancock. “We had a slow start with attendance and figuring out how people could find out about classes, but we hung in there and were consistent.”

Check out videos from our visit to the Portland, Ore., area including coverage from Bauman’s Farm & Garden (not in this article) at www.gardencentermag.com/media