Find the Perfect Planter
Members of the horticultural industry are viewed as stewards to the plants, trees and shrubs we all have the good fortune to encounter on a daily basis. In fact, many growers entered the horticultural profession for not only their love of nature, but the ability to create and support something for the good of the…
Read More“The trouble with weather forecasting is that it’s right too often for us to ignore it and wrong too often for us to rely on it.” Patrick Young For growers and garden centers across the horticultural industry, weather is a continual stressor to this seasonal business. For generations, we’ve trusted the Farmer’s Almanac (and a furry little…
Read MoreWhile many would brand the horticulture industry as a big business, the reality is horticulture is more of an art and a science in producing, marketing and using high-value cultivated plants. Comprised of annuals, perennials, edibles and ornamentals, these plants may be part of a bigger business, but their benefits to society are great –…
Read MoreAt a conference in 2010, Sheryl Sandberg, the Chief Operating Officer at Facebook, told a diverse crowd, “Email – I can’t imagine life without it – is probably going away.” Fast forward eight years and email is still alive and well – and to the surprise of many, still a viable and preferable marketing tool…
Read MoreVisual merchandising. While you might not know what it means by definition, you’ve certainly been influenced by it. Retailers, big-box stores and even restaurants have a firm understanding of what visual merchandising is, and its potential as a “silent salesperson” with customers. In short, visual merchandising combines some basic marketing principles, industry trends, product knowledge…
Read MoreSocial media was originally created as a communications platform for teenagers and college students interested in easily updating their friends throughout the day. To give you a timeline, Facebook was launched back on February 4, 2004 (14 years ago if you can believe that!). Fast forward to the year 2018, and a great deal has…
Read MoreThe week of June 18-24 is National Pollinator Week. The week is proudly sponsored by the Pollinator Partnership, whose mission is to promote the health of pollinators critical to food and ecosystems across the globe. Many don’t realize that pollinators provide pollination to over 180,000 plant species and more that 1,200 crops. That translates to one…
Read MoreIn February 2018, retail giant Amazon surprised many industries – most notably the horticulture industry – when it officially launched the Amazon Plant Store – also called your new “online greenhouse”. There you can purchase plants in a multitude of categories and in various pot sizes to suit your needs from flowering plants, to shrubs, to succulents.…
Read MoreIn last month’s edition of The HC Companies e-newsletter, we discussed visual merchandising and how garden centers should leverage this tried-and-true retail technique to deliberately present their inventory to increase sales. One of the core principles of visual merchandising is recognizing that many consumers are undecided about what they’ll purchase when entering your store. That provides you with an…
Read MoreAs younger generations enter the workforce, they’re apt to look for organizations that are dynamic, with unique personalities providing real-time feedback. Many will apply to state-of-the-art technology organizations, which tend to adopt many of the same standards younger generations crave, leaving tried-and-true fields scrambling for new talent. One of those fields is horticulture – the…
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