Well, my co-Bobbleheads Chris Beytes and Jen Zurko and I just finished eight days out in California touring new plants at the California Spring Trials. I hope you found our six days of Acres of buZZ! insightful—I know I’ve found my time out here quite constructive.

Seeing as though Jen and Chris’s flight is a full eight hours before mine, I thought I’d put my 10-hour wait at the San Jose Airport to some productive use and write this week’s e-newsletter for you folks.

Let’s start off with one Trials display that was worthy to be in a top-notch garden center. Pacific Plug & Liner’s April Herring-Murray consistently pulls together the best displays out here. And in contrast to last year’s brightly colored rock and roll-themed showing, this year she went with subdued colors to really let varieties shine.

The stacked pallets not only provide a sturdy backdrop for the plant display, but the spaces between the pallets also offer places to hang and hold pots. The pallet stack is stabilized with boards running up and down the stack. Easier for set up and tear down, too, I would imagine.

Over the next few weeks I’ll pull out individual plants that really knocked my socks off, including a few that weren’t even on the breeders’ “must see” list for us. The first of those is this cuphea called Pink Shimmer from PanAmerican Seed.

It’s 10-16 in. tall, up to 18 in. wide and is a rebloomer with no need for deadheading. A nice item for a combo, sure, but look how nice it is all on its own!  

Retailers, if you’re wondering how you can begin your journey into e-commerce, I have a bit of information for you that was forwarded to me by Jen Polanz.

Home & Garden Fulfillment, Inc., a company founded by Jeff Dinslage that’s been around since 2011, is now offering a new e-commerce option for independent retailers. The program allows retailers to reap the benefits of selling online without the investment of an in-house e-commerce team, Dinslage says.

“E-commerce is a completely different business from ‘brick and mortar’ retail sales, so some independent garden centers have been slow to take advantage of online selling,” Jeff says. “Home & Garden Fulfillment offers a turnkey solution for independent garden centers that enables them to create a robust e-commerce site that also helps drive traffic to their retail stores.”

The e-commerce option integrates into the store’s existing website and is consistent with the store’s brand, allowing customers to place orders for products that are available in-store and arrange for in-store pickup. Customers also can access plant material the retailer doesn’t have on-hand via Home & Garden Fulfillment’s network of growers. The plants are shipped to the retail location so customers can pick up there.

“The Home & Garden Fulfillment model for IGC e-commerce sales provides a unique way for independent garden centers to greatly increase the total number of plant material SKUs they sell without increasing the number of plants kept in inventory at the store,” Jeff says. Find out more at www.HGFulfillment.com.  

Has your digital presence taken a back seat to store prep, ordering and staff management as you prepare for spring? Maybe it’s time for a digital makeover. And lucky for you, I know of a company that is offering Garden Center Rescue, a contest for a free overhaul of your store’s digital presence.

The company is DIG Marketing, and if you’ve never heard of them, that’s okay because neither had I. Friend Katie Ketelsen has recently joined the team of hort industry-based marketing experts who are pumped to enhance the online presence of your garden center. After all, it’s often your customer’s first impression of your store and your brand—of course you want to put your best foot forward.

Working in a vein similar to the TV show Bar Rescue, DIG is looking for garden center owners who are, as they put it, embarrassed by their website, are looking for a brand and content revival and need some social media guidance. They’ll rescue your dilapidated brand as expertly as the This Old House team renovates a New England Victorian. It’s a $12,000 value! It’s a no-brainer for you to enter. Do so via www.SaveMyGardenCenter.com. You’ve got until April 15 to sign up and a winner will be announced soon after. Best of luck! 

On the fence about heading to the IGC Show in Chicago this August? I’ve got some updated information about its Continuing Education @ IGC, the show’s rebranded and renovated educational offerings.

This year’s five educational tracks are:

Turn a Healthy Profit from Grab & Go Container Gardens? Oh, Yes You Can! Implement a fast-moving, highly efficient, stand-alone container department that produces strong profit margins. Sharon Hadden of Allisonville Garden & Home in Fishers, Indiana, had standing-room-only crowds last year—so you know she knows what she’s talking about!

The Great Houseplant Boom of 2019 & Beyond. Houseplants are hip again, and consumers can’t get enough. Indoor plant sales consultant Ra Gadd details what you need to make your houseplant department a profit center.

New Floral Concepts and the Hottest Trends for Indie Garden Centers. Flower expert J Schwanke will tap into his 20-plus years of experience working with flowers and foliage to show you how a floral department will help your store draw and keep customers across demographics.

Quick-Start Sales Strategies for Independent Garden Centers. Phil Wrzesinski, a third-generation independent retailer, helps you key in on how to attract both Millennials and Gen Z, retail's next demographic nut to crack.   

Dream Team Hiring, Training and Retaining for Staff-Strapped IGCs. Hiring professional and consultant Jeff Kortes, will share his “caring, respect, appreciation and praise” strategy to help you hire and keep a quality team that won’t break your budget.  

Also new regarding the educational offerings is that they're located close to the show floor, thanks to the show now being located at Lakeside | McCormick. No more long walks like at Navy Pier—hurray! All Access Passes for Continuing Education @ IGC are now at the early-bird pricing of $99. Get passes for you and your team now HERE.  

I had a great conversation with the floral industry expert last week about two topics. The first, his Top 5 tropical foliage picks which I included in my most recent Tropical Topics e-newsletter. The second topic was all about his new TV show,"J Schwanke’s Life in Bloom," a show all about flowers. How exactly does one get to produce a show all about flowers?

“I had heard through my entire life all the people who my dad dealt with, people in the flower industry, say that what our industry needs is a television show about flowers. Not about gardening but about flowers,” J told me. He had kept that possibility in mind for years, and had created Ubloom.com in 2006 to help educate consumers on the topic of cut flowers. But it was through his connection to P. Allen Smith as a recurring guest on his show that he found the way to make a television show about flowers happen. Taking Allen’s tips and suggestions, J developed a show he eventually pitched to WKAR in Lansing, Michigan, right on the campus of Michigan State University. Well, this horticulture-friendly PBS affiliate was all for a show about flowers and helped J and the team take the show to American Public Television. APT, in turn, thought the show was so good, they wanted to take it nationwide. "Life in Bloom" premiered at the APT Marketplace last November and was picked up by 230 of the country’s 303 public stations. That’s a pretty successful launch!

With The Albertsons Companies as its largest underwriter (and several others, including Ball Horticultural Co., our parent company), "Life in Bloom" is described by APT as a lifestyle show that is teaching people how to include flowers in their life at every avenue. The first season is about empowering people to include more flowers in their life, while the second season, which they’ve just begun, will delve into the health and wellness connection.

“The interesting thing about it is it’s been a quest, it really has been,” said J. “Our goal with the show was to make sure that we embrace any possible avenue that people can obtain flowers. So we go to nurseries, we talk about grocery stores, we go to professional florists, we go to flower farms, we go to farmers markets, we grow them in our back yards. Any way that we can get our hands on them, that is the most important thing to me. And that’s part of my dad coming through; my dad was always insistent that every home needed more flowers, no matter what.”

J was told the carriage for "Life in Bloom" is 92 million viewers. “So that’s a reason why we want to encourage our industry to cash in on what people are seeing;” he said. “We know that if we can get them to walk through the garden center we’ve got a lot more opportunities than just a succulent or an orchid.” In fact, during the episodes J routinely visits his local nursery to pick up plants.

Because the PBS stations are in charge of their own programming, "Life in Bloom" will air at different times and different days, usually being placed in a time slot where the station managers feel it will do best. All stations are allowed to begin airing the show on April 1, and the first airing that J knows about will be in the Nashville, Tennessee, market on April 6 at 11 a.m.

Can’t wait to watch it! Check your local PBS listings, and if you can’t find it in your market, Ubloom.com will have links to the episodes and other show information. Find that at ubloom.com/lifeinbloom.  

Are you hearing rumblings that a recession is on the horizon? I am. The economy doesn’t look as rosy as it had a year or so ago, and several indicators point to slowing sales and decreasing consumer confidence. For a good synopsis, check out what Pam Danziger of Unity Marketing had to report in THIS POST.

The question is, is it a self-correction to a booming market? Or is this more of a longer-term issue that could lead to a recession? According to Pam’s post and her years of studying affluent consumers, she believes that those with incomes over $100,000 are the bellwether for consumer trends. And in that regard, Pam points to a SURVEY of folks with $125,000-plus incomes conducted by Ipsos at the end of 2018 that found they are far less optimistic about the U.S. economy than they were the year before. But, as Pam points out, affluent consumers have set themselves up to weather through any economic dip or downturn by pulling back on spending.

While Pam falls short of predicting a recession, she calls for retailers to prepare and shares ideas of her own and from organizations such as Deloitte for weathering through what might be coming. She ends with this: “In 2019, weakened retailers are facing a weak middle-class consumer base and the potential for a rapid withdrawal of the affluent heavy-spenders if they feel the least threatened in their economic status. It could add up to perfect storm at retail this year.”

Have you heard similar rumblings? Are you more or less prepared to weather uncertain economic times? Drop me a note about it HERE.

Let’s congratulate Green Profit’s inimitable storytelling columnist Amanda Thomsen on the release of her newest book, “Backyard Adventure.” Remember when your mom and pop let you play outside all day, carve slingshots or jump your banana seat bicycle off the loading dock (okay, maybe that was just me)? This book gives parents and kids ideas of fun (and a lot safer) projects and playtime activities. It’s called “free-play” nowadays, but just as engaging as when we were kids.

Gotta love a book that encourages kids being kids! Plus, this “free-play” stuff helps boost kids’ moods, decrease hyperactivity and increase creative thinking and problem solving. What are some of the 51 projects on tap? Making cardboard castles, building an adventure course and experimenting in a mud lab. Get your kids—and your laundry room—prepared for some fun. Messes approved and encouraged. You could even build a workshop at your garden center based on a couple of the activities as part of spring or summer break.

It’s from Storey Publishing, so check with them for wholesale ordering.