Pets on the Payroll

Jennifer Polanz

We’re starting a fun new segment in Green Profit highlighting your furry (or maybe not-so-furry) retail employees: your pets! Everyone loves seeing pets in the garden center, so share with us your MVPs of the non-human variety. Make sure you tell us why they’re important to the operation, too. Are they greeters? Pest control? Stress relief for your staff? Email a high-resolution picture and their story to jpolanz@ballpublishing.com.

Meet Betty, one of three cats that prowl the greenhouses at interiorscaper Parker Plants & Holiday in Plainfield, New Jersey.

“We actually have three cats (Sammy, Sammy Jr. and Betty) who originally started out in our old greenhouse as pest-control cats,” says owner Nathan Parker, who adds Betty was pretty impressive with her pest control duties in her prime. “Now they are stress-relief cats.” GP