New Course Post-Short Course

Most OFA Short Course attendees packed their bags and headed home last Tuesday following the trade show, but a group of about 25 growers, retailers and vendors trekked up Interstate 71 to Cleveland for a little more knowledge. They were treated to a two-day tour of five local garden centers, one greenhouse and the Meister Media Worldwide office in Willoughby, Ohio.

The tour began Wednesday morning at Eagle Creek Wholesale in Mantua, and wound its way toward a seven-mile stretch on a single road southeast of Cleveland. Somehow, that single stretch of road includes three quality garden centers – Eagle Creek Garden Center in Bainbridge and two Chagrin Falls garden centers, Breezewood Gardens & Gifts and Lowe’s.

The ongoing and upcoming design programs at Eagle Creek, the gift selection at Breezewood and the growing facilities at Lowe’s were certainly impressive. Eagle Creek has had success with its landscape design service, and because the area keeps growing with wealthier clientele, co-owner Todd Cain says the business would even like to move into some interior design by Christmas. Eagle Creek could set up a family’s Christmas display – tree and all, Todd says – take it down for the New Year and store them in Eagle Creek’s ample warehouse space until next Christmas.

At Breezewood, women’s – and even men’s clothes – are increasingly becoming hot sellers. Breezewood also does a great job creating multiple themes within the gift shop, and it has a couple of shelves with books and other items devoted solely to kids.

Further down the road in Chesterland was yet another garden center, Bremec Greenhouse & Nursery. One of its most impressive facilities is The Fountain Studio, a 4,700 square-foot facility under roof that houses statuary, fountains and pottery. The Fountain Studio, with its cool breezes and the trickling sound of fountain water echoing off high walls, is a welcome respite on one of Cleveland’s humid days. Customers searching for items there won’t want to leave.

Day One of the tour concluded in Avon with dinner at Pettiti Garden Center, and Licursi Garden Center in Kirtland anchored the garden center portion of the tour the next morning.

ANLA Leadership Meets At Short Course

This was the first time American Nursery & Landscape Association (ANLA) held its annual leadership conference in conjunction with OFA's Short Course, providing a great opportunity for greenhouse, nursery and garden center retail leaders to network and discuss industry issues. The traditional OFA President's Reception on the opening night of the trade show was also a fundraising venue for Horticultural Research Institute (HRI), ANLA's endowment for research. Pictured from the left are OFA Executive Director John Holmes, OFA President Bobby Barnitz, ANLA President Dwight Hughes and ANLA Executive Vice President Bob Dolibois.

The most exciting news was the work being funded by HRI's Emerging Issues and Technologies Projects Fund. For two years, HRI has been working with USDA Agricultural Research Service scientist Dr. Walter Schmidt to develop the technology an manufacturing process to make plastic pots from chicken feathers instead of petroleum products. Feathers are cleaned to extract a clean source of the protein, keratin, which can be formed into composites and polymers. More than 5 billion pounds of feather waste is generated by the poultry industry each year. Since these pots are biodegradable, our industry would be able to keep both the pots and the feathers out of landfills.

HRI has invested $100,000 for three years to support this research and is looking to raise $1 million to bring these pots to market. The organization is off to a good start, with $65,000 raised at Sunday night's reception. This included a $5,000 contribution from OFA.

Events Raise $42,000 For America In Bloom

Three major fundraisers generated $42,000 for America In Bloom (AIB), a national campaign that connects people and plants on a grassroots level by engaging communities in a national competition. AIB helps improve the quality of life in cities and towns of all sizes and has proven to be a wonderful civic revitalization program. In seven years, AIB has engaged 165 communties in 37 states with a cumulative population of 21 million. Funds raised during Short Course will be earmarked for marketing - sharing success stories and planting pride in more communities.

The first event was the Ninth Annual Dramm/OFA 5K Relay For Floriculture on Saturday morning. Kurt Becker of Dramm reported a record high in participation - 15 relay teams and six walkers. Svensson Energy Conservation defended its first-place title, finishing the 5K in 22:17. Pictured from the left are Ed Lauer of Albert J. Lauer Inc., Scott Thompson of XS Smith, Clay Crider of CriderAmericas and Kurt Parbst of Ludvig Svensson. Right on their heels was TruLeaf Technology, finishing at 22:38. This was also a breakthrough year for Wadsworth Controls, finishing in third at 24:52.

This was the first time our parent company, Meister Media Worldwide fielded a relay team, although we have participated as walkers every year. We finished in a respectable sixth place at 25:42. Considering the first five teams were full of very serious runners, this was the best we could have hoped for. Pictured are Richard Jones, Rick Welder, Ann Reiss, Eric Baumann from Argus and Kevin Yanik. Reiss and Delilah Onofrey walked.

On Monday evening, D.S. Cole Growers held its Eighth Annual Hockey in Columbus event at The Dispatch Ice Haus, the practice rink for the Columbus Blue Jackets. This is where we normally see leading Canadian and northern U.S. hockey fans face off for the no-check, no-slap-shot event. Organizer Doug Cole has been very successful in securing sponsorship from allied industry companies to support the event and AIB. He is past president of OFA and has encouraged New England towns to participate in the contest.

Also Monday night, the three winning raffle tickets were drawn during our Medal of Excellence reception. AIB President Marvin Miller of Ball Horticultural Co. addressed the audience and thanked them for their support and asked those who haven't to consider it. More than 300 hundred-dollar tickets were sold. The winning tickets were:

$500 - Anthony Tesselaar Plants

$1,000 - Virginia Walter of California PolyTechnical Institute

$5,000 - Lisa Graf of Graf Growers

For more information on how you can get involved in AIB, visit http://www.americainbloom.org/.

Another great opportunity to learn is to attend they annual awards symposium, which will be in Columbus, Ohio, Oct. 2-4. Thanks to all who supported the fundraisers and are already stewards of AIB. This program has accomplished a great deal on a shoestring budget and could do so much more with more resources.

And The Winners Are...

For 20 years, Greenhouse Grower has presented its Medal of Excellence awards to recognize the most significant innovations in flower breeding and marketing. This year's program was sponsored by Landmark Plastics and Lambert Peat Moss. Our awards program began with founding Editor Jane Lieberth and Dr. Allan Armitage covering the California Pack Trials together in the late 1980's. They were so impressed with all the great work breeders were doing to create uniform seed annuals and decided to recognize what they considered to be the most significant variety introduction at Pack Trials each year.

Armitage played a special role in our ceremony Monday evening in the big ballroom at Short Course. He is a wonderful story teller and really has a knack for capturing the true meaning of what we're all trying to achieve in the industry related to varieties and how important plants are in our lives. The crowd of about 300 is a true Who's Who in the varieties world and the top executives and employees of breeding companies from all over the world have thanked us for elevating the importance of innovative genetics as the lifeblood of our industry.

For seven years we have presented an Industry Achievement award that is a lifetime, hall-of-fame type of recognition. This year's honoree is German flower breeder Benary, which is celebrating its 100-year milestone of breeding the first F1 hybrid, which happened to be in its signature genus, begonias.

We also present a Marketer of the Year award to recognize the most innovative and proven marketing concepts that have generated more consumer interest in varieties. This was the first time we presented it to a company in the tropical foliage category, Hermann Engelmann Greenhouses, for its Exotic Angel Plants program. Accepting the award for Hermann Engelmann was Jayson Opgenorth, the production manager, who is also in charge of quality control and research and development.

Recognizing breeders for cutting edge, new introductions has always been the foundation of our Medal of Excellence program and we present three awards for breeding:

The Industry's Choice, chosen by our well-rounded panel of experts, went to Ptilotus 'Joey,' a brand new genus from Australia bred by Benary.

Duane Sinning, director of Benary North America

Rudbeckia 'Tiger Eye Gold,' the first F1 hybrid in this genus, won our Reader's Choice award. This breakthrough plant was bred by Goldsmith Seeds.
Joel Goldsmith and Delilah Onofrey

And last, but not least, is our traditonal Editor's Choice award, which was presented to PlantHaven for introducing the University of Hawaii's Royal Hawaiian colocasia collection.

Jeff Needham, Delilah Onofrey, Nanci Allen and Maureen Needham

Congratulations to all of this year's winners and nominees!

Breakfast Of Champions

Greenhouse Grower hosted its first Top 100 Growers Roundtable Breakfast on Monday at Short Course. We had an engaging discussion recapping the spring season, how we couldn't stand the weather and on execution at retail. The event was sponsored by Goldsmith Seeds, Summit Plastic and Valent. Pictured are Alex Diaz and Mike Marida of Costa Farms, who attended with Mike Rimland.


GG Editor Delilah Onofrey facilitated the discussion with GG columnist Vinny Naab, who is a consultant specializing in helping growers serve big-box retailers. For about 15 years, he was the Northeast buyer for Home Depot.


During the discussions, it was interesting to hear growers who serve Home Depot say that rival Lowe's is doing a more consistent job of merchandising garden plants. The difference? Sticking to a plan-o-gram which specifies where all the categories of live goods and hard goods should be displayed in each type of Lowe's store. With Home Depot, however, it's not unusual for there to be 30 different types of stores in a region, making it difficult to implement universal plan-o-grams. Layout is left to each store manager and stores vary widely in their presentation.



By far, the most limiting factor of this past spring season was the weather. Most of the growers had lackluster sales in May because there were too many cool, rainy weekends. Saturdays that are 72 degrees and sunny are ideal. When we asked Maryland grower Gary Mangum of Bell Nursery if broadening the geographic footprint his company serves to Virginia and Ohio helped, he said it didn't this year, because both Ohio and Maryland were rainy and North Carolina was in a drought and had watering bans. Normally, having a broader footprint is one way growers can weather regional problems and maximize sales in the sunnier areas.

We were able to get a good cross section of our Top 100 Growers to attend the breakfast, representing bedding plant, blooming potted and foliage growers, who serve home improvement stores, mass market retailers, supermarkets, independent garden centers, other growers, and even direct online to consumers. Key regions also were represented. We look forward to next year's discussions and hope this valuable forum can become an annual event.

FloraStar Gives Remaining Funds To AFE

As a final thank you to the floriculture industry, the remaining funds from FloraStar were donated to the American Floral Endowment in a short and informal ceremony on Monday during Short Course. FloraStar was dissolved after 19 successful years when it was determined the unique value of the FloraStar award program had diminished due to the rapidly changing market.

A check in the amount of $36,318.50 was given to AFE, presented by Bob Humm and Gary Hudson representing FloraStar and Danny Takao representing OFA. Mike Mellano and Sten Crissey, along with several of the Trustees from the American Floral Endowment were present for the ceremony.

"On behalf of all the people who have participated in FloraStar over the years, it is a pleasure to hand over this check to AFE to further floriculture research and scholarships," said Bob Humm, the last acting president of FloraStar. "We know it will be used wisely."

According to Sten Crissey, AFE Vice President of Development and Industry Relations, AFE has the most comprehensive programs in research and scholarships of any organization in the floral industry. Established in 1961, AFE has combined assets of nearly $14 million. Funds are invested and proceeds from the investments are used to fund research and provide scholarships for the benefit of the industry.

Gary Hudson, former Executive Director of FloraStar, and Bob Humm, FloraStar’s last president, thanked all former board members, officers, Mike Novovesky, long time Executive Director, breeders and trial location judges who participated in the FloraStar program for so many years. "We are certain the FloraStar donation will be used by AFE to continue to bring new and improved genetics to market in the years to follow," he said.

Send In Your Surveys!

For those of you who picked up the orange-colored Purdue University survey on sustainable floriculture production at Short Course, be sure to mail your responses to Jennifer Dennis by August 15.

Purdue would like to answer how sustainable your operation is and your knowledge of sustainability. The survey's results will give researchers a better understanding of grower perceptions on sustainability.

The survey should take about 15 to 20 minutes to complete, and questions about it should be directed to Jennifer at jhdennis@purdue.edu or (765) 494-1296 or Roberto Lopez at rglopez@purdue.edu or (765) 496-3425.

Surveys can be sent to the following address:

Attn: Dr. Jennifer Davis
Purdue University
Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture
625 Agriculture Mall Drive
West Lafayette, Indiana 47907-9981

Those who did not attend Short Course but would like to fill out a survey, click here.

Simplified Greenhouse Controls

Link4 unveiled a cool new environmental controls product this year in the iGrow 800, which has an iPod-like interface and some simple touchscreen options that should excite growers.

The iGrow 800 charts and graphs data for analysis and saves to a removable USB stick, and it essentially forecasts the weather to create the most ideal greenhouse environment ahead of time.

For more information on Link4, go to http://www.link4corp.com/.

So You're Getting Older ...

... And it's time to start considering the role of your kids in the company's future. Can you count on them to run it once you retire? Do they even have an interest in being a grower? A retailer? How about CEO?

More importantly, do they have the skills to be CEO?

Those who attended an interactive discussion titled "Parents of the Kids -- Family Business" mostly agreed that passion, people skills, horticultural and business management and education were the qualities their kids need to carry to be CEO. Leadership was high on the lists of many attendees, too, but leadership to your kids might have a completely different meaning than it does to you.

"Your definition of leadership is different than my definition of leadership," says William McCurry, who led the discussion with Gary Hudson. "Different generations have a different meaning of these words.

"These words can come packed with emotion or misperceptions."

One suggestion McCurry offers parents is to involve their kids in the business until they've completed their formal education. Then, force them to earn a job on their own merits, and if they decide to return to the family business after a couple of years, welcome them back.

Let's Go For A Walk, Part II

After checking out Fertil's and MasterTag's exhibits, I ended my green (what about using lime or emerald?) walking tour at the A-ROO booth. A-ROO has a line of floral packaging from NatureWorks PLA. I'm holding a purple piece of this plastic...I mean corn...yes corn...in this picture here.

I have to admit, this was pretty neat, and it even earned an impressed "No way" from Today's Garden Center's Associate Editor Ann-Marie Conroy. It feels like cellophane, sounds like cellophane, and it's just as durable. But there's a catch. Unlike it's earth-unfriendly partner, this NatureWorks PLA packaging is compostable in about 45 days. Again, pretty neat.

More specific than just telling you it's corn, this packaging is made from harvested field corn that is broken down into dextrose (corn sugar.) Then it's fermented and distilled into a lactic acid, which is eventually formed into the plastic PLA, which stands for Polylactic Acid. This pseudo-plastic is marketing friendly, making it available for labels, barcodes, etc. I also saw it in a ton of colors and patterns.

Let's Go For A Walk

For an OFA Short Course first-timer, the gazillion or so rows and booths (I'm still trying to decide if that's an exagerration or not) can be pretty overwhelming, especially for a one-day visit. But even in one day, I still had plenty of time to ogle new products and do plenty of walking.

I'm a sucker for Ellepots and pots made of basically anything other than plastic. And as I perused the trade show floor, I came upon the FERTIL booth. FERTIL has a new product out called the DOT Pot. DOT Pots are available for both, individual gardeners and for wholesale. These pots are "the world's only OMRI listed organic biodegradable pot." They are 80 percent spruce fibers and 20 percent peat moss...that's it. There are no glues and binders. Also, the electricity used during production came from renewable resources.

While at the FERTIL booth, two other products were being displayed in conjunction with the DOT Pots: MasterTag's Evo Tags/Carriers (one made of recycled plastic, the other of biodegradable plastic) and A-ROO's line of compostable floral packaging from NatureWorks. So I headed off to MasterTag's area, then to A-ROO's. Up above is a look at the Fertil's DOT Pots and MasterTag's EVO line getting along quite well.

Being Ugly Is Only Skin Deep

I love these tags.

Norwood Professional Products (based in Australia) developed them for a Bert R. Hybel's, Inc. tomato variety known for its less-than-attractive exterior. The tag promotes the tomatoes’ great taste and features googly-eyed “Homely Homer” on the front, who’s sure to catch the eye of any customer strolling the aisles of your garden center, as well as their children. What kid wouldn’t want to plant Homely Homer in the garden?

The phrase beneath his picture reads: "Being Ugly Is Only Skin Deep."

I think he's cute.

If You Find Them, Keep Them

Roy Prevost gave an excellent talk on retaining and motivating employees in a small business. His first words of advice? Dump your mission statement.

Out of eight different workshops he’s asked, not a single person in any of them has ever been able to recite their company’s mission statement. Instead, he recommends having a slogan or mantra that your employees can easily remember and live by. One of his personal favorites is, “We create happy customers.”

It’s important that the statement you choose be something you and your employees truly believe in. He also suggests you let your employees be involved in the process of determining the mantra. “Once they do it, they own it,” he said. “Once they own it, they won’t want to leave, because they own something.”

He also says that when you do find a great employee (a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10), always communicate with that person to make sure he or she is happy, and find out what will keep him or her on your staff.

Another idea is to play to their interests outside of work. If your best employees are really into movies, reward them from time to time with free movie tickets. You should also always remember to offer positive reinforcement, too. Lack of recognition is the No. 1 reason employees leave jobs, so letting them know they're doing a great job will ensure they stay with your organization for a long time.

You can also set up a Kudo Board -- essentially a chalkboard or white board in a common area of the store (like a lunch room) that employees can use to personally thank coworkers who have helped them with a task or project at work.

Exchanging Ideas

The Retailer Idea Exchange is always one of my favorite events at Short Course. It’s amazing the things you learn when a roomful of innovative garden retailers gather to share some of their best and worst ideas.

For the Idea Exchange, retailers from all over the country (and Canada, too) sat at different tables in the room, and no one from the same organization could be at the same table. The facilitators posed one question: What is the best marketing/promotion idea you’ve ever had and what is the worst?

My table didn’t even have a chance to discuss bad ideas – there were too many good ones. Here are just a few that we heard during the two-hour session:

One garden center opened a fourth location about 70 miles from its headquarters, and to solidify its place in the community, for three days the first week it was open, 20 percent of all sales went to the local City Rescue Mission. The garden center didn’t even have to advertise its good deed. The local radio and television stations promoted it for them.

Another garden center came up with a creative way to get rid of its tired pansies at the end of the season. The Pansies For Pets program benefits the local Society For The Prevention Of Cruelty To Animals (SPCA) chapter by donating $5 of each pansy flat sale during the promotion to the SPCA. In one weekend, the garden center sold 282 flats of tired pansies and got press on the local TV and radio stations, as well.

Another retailer had a great idea for simply getting customers in the store: a lunch & brunch. The garden center sold tickets at $20 a piece for a catered brunch that featured a fashion show. During the event, employees at the garden center modeled clothes from Coldwater Creek and also showcased products available for sale at the garden center. There were two seatings with 175 people each. At $20 a pop, this ended up being quite a profitable event for the garden center.

One garden center employee put her creativity to work, designing tags for mixed containers that featured a picture of the flower, along with a picture of the fertilizer the garden center recommends to go along with that container. These tags were printed on the garden center’s own Xerox printer and took only a couple of hours to create. The time and effort put into making the tags quickly paid for itself in the form of add-on fertilizer sales. Seeing the picture of the fertilizer bottle on the tag made it easy for customers to simply grab those products off the shelves.

Brilliant!

The Certification Debate Rolls On

Metrolina Greenhouses in Huntersville, N.C., earned VeriFlora certification today, and in a session titled "The Journey to Certification," co-owner Abe Van Wingerden shared thoughts on why his operation pursued sustainability certification.

The decision to pursuing certification isn't simply made for the sake of doing it, he says, and waiting for a national sustainability standard is not the right answer.

"You need to be ahead of the curve, not behind it," says Van Wingerden, whose company began the certification process in November 2007. "We're not doing it just because someone told us to. The process made us internally better. So that $10,000 investment might have led to $100,000 in savings."

Metrolina has not, however, found a way to generate sales from VeriFlora through marketing. At this stage, most consumers simply don't know what VeriFlora is, Van Wingerden says.

"We haven't found that piece that draws in the consumers," he says. "We don't see this as the additional stamp that's going to allow us to make sales off it."

Chris Schlegel, head grower at D.S. Cole Growers in Gilmanton, N.H., says sustainability certification has also helped helped her company better organize itself. D.S. Cole Growers was recently certified by MPS, and Schlegel offered some positive thoughts of her own on pursuing certification.

"We strived to be good environmental stewards, we wanted to reduce employee exposure to pesticides and we saw there was a potential to use certification as a marketing tool," she says.

VeriFlora Expands To Include Manufacturers

The VeriFlora program initially launched to certify nursery plants, potted plants and cut flowers produced in a sustainable manner, and it will now certify products that are manufactured in sustainable production practices.

BioWorks became the first manufacturer to earn certification from VeriFlora.

"Many growers and retailers concerned about sustainability are looking for independent guidance to decide which input materials, plant pots and containers and other products can support their sustainability objectives," says Linda Brown, executive vice president of SCS. "We've established the VeriFlora Approved Material Manufacturers program to address this need."

RootShield Granules is actually the first product approved under the VeriFlora seal, as it can reduce or replace the use of some chemical fungicides used to control root diseases. RootShield is also non-toxic to humans and animals.

Ball, Summit Team For Biodegradable Options

Ball Horticultural Company and Summit Plastic Company spent two years researching and developing biodegradable packaging, and the two companies have partnered to bring just that to the market.

"It is estimated that, while 48 percent of consumers place their plant pots and trays in their community recycling programs, most of that plastic still ends up in a landfill," says Bill Doeckel of Ball Horticultural Company. "Ball is committed to changing those statistics, and we're pleased to have a partner, Summit, that shares our goals."

Summit will produce a range of bio-packaging products using bio-resin, which looks and feels like plastic yet degrades after a few months in the ground. The partnership made sense, too, because Summit is easily able to manufacture bio-resin with its tools and equipment without altering the size of packages.

Poinsettias In A Vase

Nothing says Christmas like a big round pot pouring with a beautiful, compact poinsettia plant, right?

Poinsettias have been the Christmas plant of choice for a long time, and that’s not likely to change anytime soon. But how about a fresh approach to this traditional holiday favorite?

We’ve already gussied them up with paint and glitter, and now we’re seeing them as cut flowers. Ecke was displaying these stunning vases that turn the traditional poinsettia into a simple yet elegant cut flower arrangement.

I really like this new twist on the poinsettia. And on a side note, I think these would make beautiful table centerpieces for a winter wedding.

A Gentlemen's Agreement

A great session at Short Course focused on contract growing, and paired two large operations with two smaller operations that supply them. All four growers on the panel agreed that a good relationship and communication between all the players is key.

Bobby Barnitz describes the arrangement his operation has selling plugs to Gary Mangum’s Bell Nursery as a gentlemen’s agreement. With Mangum’s network of family growers, the relationship is a bit more formalized, and he says he has a commitment to take product from these growers no matter the situation. With growers like Barnitz, though, Mangum says he expects growers to work with Bell to get plants to market.

Once they are to market, Mangum makes sure they sell. Bell nursery invests $7 million per year in personnel in the 180 Home Depot stores the operation supplies, taking care of plants and answering questions.

Heartland Growers has started using a contract system because it’s seen more growth than in can handle in its current facilities. Its contract grower, Crossroads Greenhouse, helps the operation meet customer demands, and can focus on its niche of blooming potted crops. Nick Gapinski of Heartland says the relationship between the two operations is a casual back and forth.

“If you grow it, we’ll take it,” he said.

Crop Shrinkage – The Silent Assassin

This was a cute title for a session about a serious problem. Peter Konjoian of Konjoian's Floriculture Education Services brought up the serious numerical fact that for every plant you throw away, you throw away the profit from 2.5 plants sold at full price. Out of every 1,000 plants, how many do you think fall in the shrinkage category? Konjoian says between those that are knocked off the bench, improperly watered, unsaleable, damaged during handling, dumped or given away, it’s easy to get to 40 throwaway plants, which equals 4 percent shrink. That’s just within the acceptable range.

Co-presenter Rick Yates of Griffin Greenhouse and Nursery Supplies shared some numbers on how using a more expensive product that prevents more pests and diseases can cost less than a cheaper product that doesn’t protect against as much.

Yates says a big key to preventing shrink is scouting. If you turn up aphids in 200 flats out of 1,000, think of good scouting as rescuing all 1,000 flats, not just the 200 you saved from the infestation.