It’s not what you know

In business and in life, I’ve always heard that it’s not about what you know, it’s all about who you know. Those who make the effort to maintain good professional and personal relationships tend to be more successful in their endeavors, as well as more capable of recovering after a difficult time because of their strong support system.

Over the last few months, we’ve been working on a research project with our sister publication Greenhouse Management to find out how exactly growers and retailers can work together more effectively to improve their relationship. We surveyed both groups of readers to find out what was most important to each of them and found that there was a lot of overlap. Not surprisingly, open and consistent communication, as well as concerns about pricing and payments topped both of the lists. You can read the full story and check out the survey results starting on page 20. As always, I’d love to hear what you think - shoot me an email at kvarga@gie.net anytime.

To complement our cover story, we decided to focus most of the rest of this issue on what makes our industry tick: plants. This is our “green” issue, where we look at plants of all kinds, from aquatic plants (page 30) to mini fruit trees (page 36) and everything in between. Take a virtual visit to Raker Trial Gardens, the site of this August’s BloomaPalooza, on page 34, and the Gaylord Opryland Gardens (page 42), an impressive 9 acres of indoor greenery and water features.

(NOTE: As of 7/1/2013, BloomaPalooza 2013 has been canceled. Click here for more information: https://www.gardencentermagazine.com/bloomapalooza-2013-cancelled.aspx)

I recently returned from California Spring Trials, where I most certainly got my fill of green and sun, and wished I could bring some back with me to Ohio to last me until spring decided to make an appearance. We’ll be bringing you extensive coverage of the week in California in our July issue, but you can check out our video coverage on our website in the meantime by clicking on the Multimedia tab.

Lastly, don’t miss our State of the Hard Goods section, where we share insights from consumer experts about what’s hot right now and why hard goods are an important part of these trends, starting on page 53.

As spring progresses and we continue through our busiest time of the year, I hope you’re seeing plenty of green!

kvarga@gie.net