The Wind Keeps Shifting — So Must Our Sails
February 11, 2009 
I never like to talk politics in a public forum, but given the leadership in Washington, hope still springs eternal. Regardless of your party affiliation and regardless of how awful the economy is, optimism is always more comforting than pessimism, but between the two is realism.
My mother was the eternal optimist, and she used to quote William Arthur Ward, an American writer and speaker: “The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.” Of course, neither my mother nor I had any idea who Mr. Ward was, but even I thought his logic made sense.
We are certainly in the grip of some strong headwinds. I am optimistic the economy will turn around, not without pain and not without loss, but times will get better. This economy, however, has painfully pointed out that horticulture is not recession-proof. People will spend money only on what is necessary (petunias are not), and then only on what provides good value for their dollar. In our business, value translates to success in the garden or container or basket. Our job is not to grow more plants but to sell the right plants.
Pushing Good Plants
I hear many different views, opinions and sentiments in my travels. One statement that has been increasing in volume for some time is, “The market is in the hands of the box store buyers.” There is a good deal of truth to this. They control the numbers, they know little about cultivars (as long as they look good on the shelf) and price is at least as important as quality.
The inference of that statement is that the end users (i.e. the traditional gardeners) have no choice in what they receive. Personally, I have no major issue with that. Consumers seldom demonstrate a preference for a cultivar, so they get what is available.
However, if the grower and the broker really care about the consumer, the store buyer should be purchasing good reds, blues and white (if not the best) petunias, begonias or daylilies, and the consumer should have a reasonable chance for success. What does the term “best” involve? I am referring to plants that not only meet the greenhouse criteria of price, uniformity and minimal time on the bench, but also outdoor performance based on the region where the plants are to be sold.
There are two problems with getting good plants to the consumer. The first is that although breeders and breeding companies are international, retailing is regional. The second has to do with honesty and knowledge. Are the buyers receiving and using sound impartial advice and then offering the best plants for their stores? This is not easy.
The pressure on the brokers to know more about their products and to be unbiased advisors to the grower is enormous. Similarly, if asked, the responsibility of the grower to advise the buyers about good plants is also higher than ever before.
The Bigger Picture
I visited one of my favorite businesses last month–Ball Horticultural Company. I was pleased to meet Diane Hund, the director of marketing. I have serious misgivings about marketing people whose sole goal in life is to promote a brand. Diane’s job is certainly to promote her brands, but instead of talking about labels, lifestyle and pot appearance, she talked about the consumer.
As we talked, we both became animated and hands and arms were flying everywhere. With a flourish, she unholstered her pen and drew a quick diagram of her ideas (I felt like Steve Jobs’ assistant as he outlined the iPod on a napkin), and believe it or not, they mirrored mine, but were much more cogent.
She said, “Allan, of course I want to get more people to buy our brand, but what I really want is to get more people buying plants. So what we need is to shift more Casual Gardeners in Zone 2 to Enthusiastic Gardeners in Zone 3 far more quickly.” According to Ball’s research, she explained, it takes consumers about 10 years to make this progression on their own.
As we talked, the question became “What can we do to hurry this along?” Just as success in exams causes one to study more, success with good plants causes people to plant more. Without success, consumers will move from area 2 to 1, rather than the other direction.
That’s it, of course: If the gardener who buys two plants this spring is successful partly because the plants are vigorous and wonderful, she may buy four the next year and so on. We must be optimistic, and as Diane showed, we also must be realistic. I suggest we look closely at the plants we sell and adjust our sails accordingly.
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