O’Donal’s Nursery: New floral department boosts visibility and sales

The addition of a new floral department has helped boost sales at the Gorham, Maine-based O’Donal’s Nursery Inc., but more importantly, it now brings in more diverse clientele and increases overall winter sales.

The floral shop offers fresh cut flowers, bouquets and custom arrangements. It opened just in time for Valentine’s Day 2013 after a multi-generation, family-owned floral store in the area closed. Owner Jeff O’Donal says the opening of the shop was directly prompted by a need in the community and requests from customers for fresh-cut flowers.

“That first Valentine’s sales period paid for the entire investment,” he says. And, from Valentine’s Day through April of this year, “We have not had a day that we were open that we did not have a floral sale.”

Two full-time and two part-time employees work in the department of the garden center, which was founded in 1960. Floral sales only make up about 5 percent of annual sales at the nursery, but the shop serves a niche market and brings customers into the nursery year-round. Many of these customers end up purchasing other items within the nursery, which adds to the overall bottom line, O’Donal says. Arrangements often feature unique items directly from plants in the nursery — from curly willow branches to stems from tri-color beeches and clippings from other woody ornamentals.

“It really adds a unique twist to what most people have available,” he says.

Woody plant sales drive the business today, making up about 80 percent of sales. Customers here include homeowners and contractors, and many come to O’Donal’s Nursery for larger caliper trees, which are grown by the company. Other popular sellers here include dry goods, annuals and perennials such as the Barth daylily. O’Donal’s Nursery purchased the rights to the line and inventory of the daylily in 2010. Customers travel from multiple states to purchase the plant line that includes more than 80 varieties, known for their continual bloom. O’Donal’s Nursery also ships the daylily to customers as far away as California, Montana, Virginia, Ohio and New York, and seedlings and hybrid varieties of the plant are developed on-site, adding to the appeal.

In addition to niche offerings like the Barth daylily, O’Donal attributes the company’s success to his employees and a rebound in the local economy.

“We get many, many emails and calls [specifically to me] telling me how well they were treated and how knowledgeable they [the staff] are,” he says. “We have the belief that if we hire a good person, we can train them and teach them what they need to know. It is rewarding, it’s a nice feeling. It is expected. I expect a lot from them but I’d not expect them to do anything I would not do myself.

“I feel confident we have made a lot of the right decisions and we have a lot of the right people in the right positions.”

Despite a strong staff, from 2007 to 2012, sales decreased annually, mostly due to the recession. Northeastern states like Maine were hit first and were last to recover, O’Donal says. But recovery has picked up over the past few years, and 2014 sales back that trend as both homeowner and contractor clients regain confidence.

“We are building that back now,” he says. “We expect to see another decent increase this year. We feel confident what we are doing is right and what we are offering is what people want.”