Truth be told, I’m not sure at the moment what Hurricane Florence wrought, at least in regard to garden centers. My colleague Debbie Hamrick, who is also with the North Carolina Farm Bureau, let us know earlier this week that for the ornamental horticulture industry, “We know there’s damage … just not the extent.” She told me of a wholesale grower who believes they experienced a tornado that wiped out a pumping station. Other than that instance, reports are still trickling in.

I contacted The Garden Center Group’s Danny Summers to see about their members, and also the Steinhausers at Wingard’s Market in South Carolina. Both had not heard of damages reported by IGCs within their networks. However, both did mention that the wholesale growers in the eastern portion of North and South Carolina are likely doing some major clean up.

That means a possible delay in or a limited supply of fall plant products for the retailers they service. Scott Culbreth, a sales rep for Hackney Nursery who lives in Kinston, North Carolina, essentially confirmed that. While he hadn’t heard specific reports, he knows of several grower,s such as Johnson Nursery, who were right in the middle of the storm. Whether growers were hit or not, it’s been “two wasted weeks,” as Scott described it. “Don’t get me wrong. By that I mean for the industry, all of our customers were preparing for something that happened or didn’t happen and now they are dealing with the aftermath. In both cases they are not selling much.”

I have some emails into a few IGCs in the Wilmington area. Honestly, they have more important things to do at the moment than return my messages. I hope to get some updates by next week. If you have any first- or second-hand knowledge about damages to horticultural operations and you have time to DROP ME A LINE, please do so. Or if there’s anything we can do to help, let us know that, too.  

Speaking of weather issues, I asked last week what issues were of major concern to your state or region, and weather was mentioned most frequently. Two folks weighed in from the West Coast—San Diego, California, and Salem, Oregon, to express concerns regarding climate change.

Firs and cedars are dying en masse, according to Andrea Riley of Meyer Nursery & Orchard, as the USDA Hardiness Zones are moving and impacting where and how plants of all sorts are grown. The changing environment is also increasing pest pressures, she says, as birds, bats and other predators are lost to the area. (Stephanie Cohen weighed in from the East Coast with a warning about the lantern fly, too.) What to do? Plant more, and plant more of what will grow in the changing conditions.

“In Southern California, my biggest issue is global warming,” says Tina Cremer of H2Xero Landscape. “The ‘zone’ descriptions are changing, weather is unpredictable, many more new pests are thriving, drought conditions have gotten worse and fires are unpredictable and out of control.” Put together like that, it does sound devastating, indeed.

The Midwest weighed in on weather, too. Billy Welter of Victor Hlavacek Florist and Greenhouses in Illinois has a beef with the shifting line between winter and spring. “In the Midwest, it seems like our spring has been shrinking and our winter is longer. This results in a shorter early-spring sales period and then we try to make up our lost sales in late spring and early summer. We may have a good season, but it is always hard to make up for lost sales.” He adds that there are a few folks who do plant when it’s cold and wet outside, but a few people don't pay the bills! 

The remainder of the issues concerning folks the most is varied in nature. I asked for the one issue concerning your state or region the most, but Billy felt compelled to submit two, and his second was health insurance. “As an employer, one of the few perks many of us are able to offer is health insurance. We have to find the money for this somewhere and this means either cutting spending, raising prices or both.”

“Tariffs!” says Jon Oliver, a grower technical specialist with BFG Supply. “After a long period of soft demand over the last decade, we were finally enjoying an increase in capital investments. These are all of a sudden being tempered now by price increases due to poorly considered tariffs.”

Taxes are an issue, too (when are they not?!). Bill Boonstra of Bluestone Perennials says the Wayfair decision removing physical presence as the litmus test for tax collection on remote sales is now making it “the Wild West” for everyone except only the biggest online retailers.

Lastly, Keavy Franzoni of Atlantic Plants (I believe in New Jersey) wrote in about how this was the first time in 17 years of using documented workers that he did not get “my fabulous employees from Mexico” on the H-2B visas. “I tried to hire Americans this spring and it was a disaster. I almost lost my business in a short time frame with no laborers willing to meet my contract deadlines.” He was lucky to get his workers by late June to get all his properties in shape, though, thankfully. “If the returning worker exemption for the H-2B visa does not go through this year on the appropriations bill, I think many companies will lose an incredible amount of revenue if not lose their businesses altogether.” 

Do you have other pressing issues? Weigh in on what concerns you HERE.

Which leads us into the next issue impacting landscapers: Those using the H-2B visa program are being targeted by the Department of Labor’s Wage & Hour Division for a compliance and outreach initiative. According to the DOL press release on this nationwide initiative, "The initiative includes providing compliance assistance tools and information to employers and stakeholders, as well as conducting investigations of employers using this program.”

What kind of compliance are they talking about? Here is what the DOL press release says on that matter:

“Before employers can be approved to request guest workers under the H-2B program, they must file an application with the Department stating that:

• An insufficient number of U.S. employees are qualified and available to work; and
• The employment of non-immigrant, temporary workers will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed U.S. workers.”

AmericanHort is on the job, communicating with the DOL on compliance assistance and outreach. DOL has some resources available—you can find those HERE.   

Thanks, colleague Kim Brown, for passing along this Vox article entitled, “Why we buy the things we buy.” She had sent it along because she thought you, the garden center, would appreciate the travails and triumphs of the brick-and-mortar bookstores, which have a lot in common with your own business.

In essence, the article says by being an actual building, bookstores (and garden centers, too) “provide a physical space that delivered the one thing Amazon is incapable of: a sense of belonging.” I would say the same for a yoga studio, a CrossFit “box,” a knitting store, a small music venue or any number of places that lovers of things in common can come together and form a community. After all, the emotional side of consumers seeks out experiences with others.

One of the article’s quotes that stuck out to me is from Donna Paz Kaufman, an independent bookstore consultant, who said:

“What is tangible and lasting for independent bookstores is that they are the living room of the community. A place where ideas are welcome, dialogue is interesting, and people can simply be and find other people/books/programs that make life a little bit better.”

Replace the word “bookstores” with “garden centers” or “nurseries” and ask yourself, is that what I am offering my community?  

Hema, the new brick-and-mortar store of the behemoth online retailer Alibaba, may be the complete opposite of a “living room” kinda store. Think of Alibaba as the Chinese equivalent (but bigger) version of Amazon. Hema, in other words, is Alibaba’s Whole Foods.

But in fact, it’s the other way around. Whereas Amazon has distribution for 2-hour grocery delivery out of Whole Foods, Hema essentially operates out of an Alibaba distribution center. It’s a pretty efficient concept.

Speaking of efficiency, you will be blown away with the degree of efficiency Hema acquires for the whole shopping (and eating!) process through the use of digital tech. I’d try to describe it to you, but I know THIS VIDEO does it way more justice.

If there is one thing to note, it’s that there are no cashiers, so customers shop by using the Hema app, which they can use to scan barcodes for product information, sourcing and meal recipes.

Those shelf-level price tags may look like they’ve been printed, but get this—it’s actually a digital display that allows the store to change the price in real time. Makes you rethink the ol’ chalk board sign, huh?  

Trade shows are all about community, aren’t they? And the Mid-Atlantic Nursery Trade Show (MANTS) is one of the more popular “community building” shows on the circuit. It’s coming back for its 49^th annual event this January 9-11. As usual it’ll be held at the Baltimore Convention Center. What makes MANTS different? There are no classes, educational sessions, speakers or certification programs. It’s just you and your vendors/customers getting business done on the show floor.

If you go or exhibit, you’ll have access to nearly 1,000 vendors from across the country and attendees from about the country and around the world. And I hear the MANTS team is anticipating about another 100 new exhibitors this year. So if you think, “Nah, I’ll skip this year,” you might just miss meeting your best new vendor.

Interested in exhibiting or attending? Registration is now open at www.MANTS.com. 

Cow poop made into biodegradable pots. Soybean remnants turned into plant food. Now, discarded flowers turned into paint!

In an effort to reduce waste, Sri Lankan paint company JAT Holdings is turning discarded flowers left at Buddhist temples into their latest product, Petal Paint. It takes about 200 kilos (441 pounds) to make about 13 gallons. It’s currently available in five colors, including Lotus Red and Marigold Orange.

The paint from natural pigments will be available to artists working on the old and faded murals in Sri Lanka’s many temples.

So at this point, Petal Paint is not practical to scale. In fact, it could be considered a marketing stunt. And now that you know about it, I guess it was a successful stunt, at that.