Million Pollinator Garden Challenge Is Retail Ready For 2016
March 29, 2016 
Industry organizations supporting the challenge to plant a million pollinator gardens have created marketing materials for garden stores, including bench cards, banners, and images to plug into social media, as well as an educational webinar on pollinator issues.
As a reminder, The National Pollinator Garden Network is encouraging consumers to plant pollinator-friendly gardens to support pollinator health within their landscapes and their greater community. It hopes to have one million pollinator gardens planted and registered by the end of 2017. Thanks to the Horticultural Research Institute (HRI), the research arm of AmericanHort, garden centers can join the Million Pollinator Garden Challenge push for pollinator gardens by directing consumers to pollinator plants using specially designed point-of-purchase (POP) materials.
HRI donated in-kind design services to produce “Help Us Plant One Million Gardens” point-of-purchase (POP) materials, which can be printed on-demand through Garden Center Marketing. The colorful and educational marketing materials include hang tags, bench cards and a variety of sizes of banners all depicting pollinators and their favorite flowering plants.
Prices are comparatively low, due to the in-kind design services, ranging from $18 for 20 bench cards to a vinyl, double-sided banner priced at $51. Each full-color sign uses the message “Help Us Plant One Million Gardens” along with the depiction of a pollinator and a plant. Most signs also include a “Plant Something for Pollinators” message along with a directive to register one’s garden at MillionPollinatorGardens.org. Garden Center Marketing, along with AmericanHort, took on the set-up costs in order to provide the materials at a lower cost.
“These pollinator POP materials are such an effective way to communicate with gardening customers on the need to support our nation’s pollinators,” says Diane Blazek, executive director of the National Garden Bureau, a founding member of the National Pollinator Garden Network.
“Our industry’s retailers will play a key role in shoring up pollinator health in this country,” says AmericanHort’s Senior Vice President of Industry Advocacy and Research Craig Regelbrugge. “They are the link between what pollinators need in the way of food and shelter and the ability for people across this country to provide it. We’re making these signage options available at a low cost for garden centers in order for them to visibly spread the word about the importance of using pollinator plants.”
Registering Your Garden Center’s Garden
The coalition would also like for garden centers to register their own on-site demonstration gardens for the Million Pollinator Garden Challenge. It’s simple to do using one of two ways:
- Visit millionpollinatorgardens.org and register the garden, or
- Upload pictures of the garden to the mobile app GrowIt! using the hashtag #pollination.
Images For Social Media Campaigns
Most garden stores use social media for marketing. GrowWise.org, a pollinator heath program from HRI, is offering related images you can download for your Facebook and Twitter campaigns.
Training For Your Staff
AmericanHort hosted a highly informative webinar on the pollinator issues our industry is facing. It is an ideal way for your staff to understand how we can help customers help pollinators healthy.
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