Golden ticket: Garden Goods and Sun Gro's Black Gold

It’s challenging to be the sole beautiful rose contained by a wall of towering weeds. At least, that’s what it feels like for Traverse City, Michigan-based Garden Goods, a modestly sized garden center surrounded on all sides by big-box retailers.

But one of the things that makes Garden Goods stand out from its corporate competitors and regularly drives customers through its doors is Black Gold.

“Carrying Black Gold is a big draw for our customers,” says Elise Holman, who co-owns Garden Goods with her husband, Cory. “People constantly comment on Black Gold’s quality compared to other soil brands sold in the big-box stores.”

Sun Gro Horticulture, a North American horticultural company founded in 1929, supplies soilless growing mixes to North America’s top growers and independent garden centers, shipping more than 70,000 truckloads of product annually. Black Gold is Sun Gro’s top-selling line of soilless mixes, amendments and fertilizers and has been the go-to choice of professional and home growers since 1986. Award-winning packaging and a premium line of products have made Black Gold an iconic brand, and its organic lines are OMRI-listed.

The Black Gold line, like all of Sun Gro’s products, is made to rigorous standards and meets exceptional product quality and performance criteria, which Garden Goods clients with discerning green thumbs appreciate. And Holman counts herself among its biggest fans.

“I like the texture and the consistency of the products,” she says. “You don’t see the oodles and oodles of mulch chunks in the soil, which you don’t want. It’s a super well-rounded product, whether we’re doing custom potting jobs or repotting succulents during the winter.”

The Black Gold products are incredibly versatile, allowing a professional grower or a horticultural hobbyist a solid growing medium for a wide range of different plants and applications.

“Our customers always comment how well the plants do in Black Gold, whether they start with the seed starting mix, or they use the all-purpose or organic mix,” Holman says. “Compared to run-of-the-mill potting soil mixes, they see a difference in the quality of their plants from using just the Black Gold products. The plants’ color always holds a nice true green, and you don’t see a ton of yellowing.

“If they’ve used other soils in the past, then [customers] always comment on the difference they’ve noticed from using the Black Gold products,” she adds.

From a retail perspective, Holman says carrying the Black Gold products provides them with critical revenue opportunities during traditionally slow times of the year.

“During the off-season, we close the greenhouses and shrink to just the main store,” she says. “The Black Gold [planting mixes] keep people coming in. It’s actually pretty shocking how many people come in during the winter wanting to buy Black Gold.”

In addition to providing a quality product, Holman says their professional relationship with Sun Gro has been nothing less than stellar.

“Our [Sun Gro] rep comes in regularly to check in,” she says. “She always gives us tips and ideas for displaying products and is full of information and knowledge that we can pass on to the customer or use in the store ourselves. So, it’s been an amazing experience working with Sun Gro.”