Full article in the October issue of Garden Center Magazine.

The bulb category is a highly diverse and versatile one for garden centers and home gardeners. The key to selling more bulbs is to make sure you’re maximizing your marketing opportunities and selling strategies year-round. How you stock and market your bulbs will greatly impact when, how many and how quickly they sell. (For simplicity’s sake, in this article we’ll use the term “bulb” to encompass all true bulbs, rhizomes, tubers and corms.)

Pre-sell

Speeding up inventory turns and improving cash flow is always a top priority for independent garden centers. So how do you do that with bulbs? Essentially, bulbs are a hard good line that gives you much more flexibility in terms of when you buy them and how you maintain them in the store. You’re probably already pre-booking most — if not all — of your bulbs. So why not pre-sell them to your customer?

Pre-selling inventory is a great way to get cash into the register long before you receive the product or have to pay for it. Pre-selling will take a bit of organization and accounting adjustments on your part, but it’s well worth the effort. Pre-selling product also gets customers back into the store for extra visits when they come to pick up their orders. Most POS systems will enable you to set up work orders and paid pick-ups for such pre-orders.

...Read the entire article HERE.

Texas Sage Side by Side

If there is one landscaping practice I simply won't succumb to it's formal boxed (and boring) foundation shrubs. I prefer to pick plants that will grow to the size I want them, where I want them, and then let them do their thing. Of course a little tip pruning is required for any foundation shrubs now and then, but overall I like my foundation beds much more natural. In order to bring foliage and bloom interest (and bee food) into my #frontscape I've incorporated a number of Texas sage plants.

Some sort of wet stuff came down from the sky in Dallas the other day. After an intensely hot and dry summer, a bump in humidity and a bit of rainfall has sent my Texas sage shrubs into a blooming frenzy. Ok, some of them. Not every Texas sage performs the same; there are several species and a number of cultivars available. So, which one do you think is wearing it best right now?

Different cultivars of Texas Sage side by side in my garden
PC: Leslie F. Halleck

You'll see Texas sage 'Silverado' on the left...and Texas sage 'Rio Bravo' on the right. It's an easy choice, no? The 'Rio Bravo' is so heavily loaded with blooms that some of the branches are bending under the weight. It's a glorious sight to behold and the entire shrub is vibrating with overjoyed honeybees. It looks like this every time it blooms.

While there are some blooms on the 'Silverado', it never blooms as intensely as my 'Rio Bravo'. Now to be fair, the 'Silverado' gets a tad more cast shade from the house. My other 'Silverado' on the opposite side of the house do get a bit more direct sun and thus will bloom a bit heavier. But even they can't match the profusion of blooms on the 'Rio Bravo'.

You'll notice that the foliage on the 'Rio Bravo' is more green than silver, so even though the 'Silverado' doesn't bloom as heavily, it does provide me with the intense silver foliage I want in the bed. So either way, it's a win/win.

Anyhoo, couldn't resist showing you a "who wore it best" from the garden.

The full article published in the August issue of Greenhouse Management Magazine.

Consumers are increasingly interested in nontraditional plants for the holiday season. Grower-retailers should consider these succulents, tropicals and edibles as the end of the year approaches.

While some growers are still finding steady success with their poinsettia crops, many others are turning to alternatives to correct sales slumps.

Demand for indoor plants is growing and customers want specimens that complement the look of their home and help them bring a bit of nature indoors. They also want multipurpose outdoor plants. Finished gift and table-top plants still offer a good opportunity to drive niche-season and impulse sales, but offering fresh new alternatives that meet customers changing indoor and outdoor plant needs may be the best way to recapture their holiday dollar. Here are a few finished potted plants that are trending and can be creatively marketed for holiday sales:

Succulents

Echeveria are impressive specimens bound to please any recipient. The large whorled leaves of echeveria give it the look of a giant rose bloom. Some echeveria varieties sport brightly colored foliage and even ruffled leaves. Echeveria gibbiflora ‘Red Ruffles’ is particularly suited to the holiday season, with red-edged ruffled leaves.The rosette grows to the size of a large cereal bowl, making it the perfect size for a table-top centerpiece. Plants can be kept indoors in a bright location as a houseplant, or set out on the patio in summer. Echeveria make water-wise landscape specimens in warmer climates. Plants send up foot-tall flower spikes in summer with red-orange flowers. Echeveria ‘Christmas’ is also quite suited to the season, with red-tipped leaves.

‘Christmas Carol’ aloe comes complete with a festive name and brightly colored foliage. The succulent leaves offer deep crimson spots edged in vibrant red. Red flower spikes are a festive bonus. This is a petite plant perfect for a more space-conscious gift giver. Plants can be kept as an indoor houseplant or set outdoors in zones 9-11.

For a shock of intense foliage color, consider Crassula capitella ‘Campfire.’ The succulent leaves offer up a fiery red color perfect for the holiday season. Plants grow to only about 6 inches tall which make it a handy, grab-and-go holiday gift plant. Again, this succulent makes an excellent houseplant in a bright location and a perfect patio table plant in summer.

Read the entire article HERE.

Sometimes, when you're plant hunting, you end up finding the coolest critters instead. As I puttered around the Cylburn Arboretum in Baltimore, snapping shots of plants, I was lucky enough to stumble upon some milkweed tiger moth larvae (caterpillars) munch on some Asclepias tuberosa (orange perannial butterfly weed).

Much like monarch butterfly caterpillars, the milkweed tiger moth,Euchaetes egle, harvest cardiac glycosides from milkweeds and retain them as adult moths. These compounds make them toxic to predators. Hence the bright warning colors. But really, I find them adorable! These brightly colored, and cute, caterpillars mature into a somwhat drab brown moth. Ah, youth is grand, no?

Recently, I was in Baltimore for the Annual Perennial Plant Association Symposium. Tours are a big part of the week-long event and we had the chance to swing by the lovely gardens at the Smithsonian in D.C. If you haven't been, be sure to make them a stop on your next visit to the Capitol.

A lovely Partierre planted with Angelonia in front of the visitor center.

The garden beds are filled with loads of interesting plants, most of which are clearly labeled.

It's a cornocopia of funky plants!

Are you in the business of breeding perennials? If so, there's a deadline coming up that may interest you:

After almost five years of anticipation, All-America Selections is proud to announce that our long-term perennial trial is now a thing of reality! AAS will be working in partnership on the trials with the Perennial Plant Association (PPA).

The next step is accepting entries for this brand new trial.

This is a very exciting opportunity for your company and your new genetics. For the fee of $1,200 per entry, your new genetics will be trialed at more than 20 diverse locations and evaluated by our non-biased, independent, professional judges. Please note: the usual AAS rules of ‘new, never-before-sold’ will apply in future years but for this first year, we will accept entries that have been introduced within the past 12 months, meaning no earlier than July 1, 2014.

This is a THREE-WINTER trial meaning what you enter in the summer of 2015 will be trialed winter 2016/17, 2017/18 and 2018/19 and will be introduced as an AAS Winner summer or fall of 2019.

Please start thinking about which of your breeding work would make a good AAS/PPA perennial entry for 2016-2019. Entries are due July 1. You can download the perennial entry form here.

Any questions should be directed to Diane Blazek, AAS Executive Director.

You may have noticed a bump in the mosquito population lately. I can't imagine why...Oh yeah, we've had about a million inches of rain! The continual and heavy rainfall has created the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes. They're emerging in droves in the DFW area. NOW is the time to take preventative action if you don't want the city spraying chemicals around your property.

All it takes is a few handfuls of a natural larvicide to successfully prevent mosquitoes.

Bt (Bacillius thuriengensis var. israelensis) also known as Thuricide (liquid form) or Mosquito Bits, is my not so secret weapon to having no mosquito problems in my yard. This naturally occurring bacteria is fatal only to larvae and caterpillars. The species included in this product is particularly effective against mosquito larvae (and fungus gnats). All you have to do is sprinkle a few handfuls of the bits under your foundation shrubs, any landscape beds with automated irrigation or that you water regularly, drain boxes, low spots in the yard and even gutters. Timing depends on the weather. If it's warm early, I'll put out my first application in April, if it's not then early May. Then again in June, July, August and September. If you have ponds, birdbaths or live on a creek, purchase the floating dunk form and just pitch one, or a piece of one in the standing water.

The Bt attacks the mosquito larvae and kills them before they even have a chance to hatch. This bacteria is safe for children, pets, birds and fish. It's the most non-toxic and most effective treatment for dealing with mosquitoes.

Hopefully, you haven't been contributing to the moisture problem by running your sprinkler systems. The rain we've been getting is more than any landscape could hope to absorb.

If neighbors, or neighborhoods, got together on prevention we could make a huge dent in the city's mosquito population. Make a deal with your neighbors...if you live on a creek, each one of you should get together and buy a 4 or 6 pack of the mosquito dunks. Once per month from April through September, simply pitch one out the back door into the creek. You'll be amazed by the results. Do you have a housebound or elderly neighbor? How about buying a pack for them and dropping it off, or better yet, apply the bits or dunks in their yard/creek for them.

Bt is inexpensive and easy to apply. If you haven't picked up your Mosquito Bits yet, don't delay.

Sometimes you get so busy doing what you're doing that you don't stop to thank the people who recognize your hard work...and say thank you back! I was honored to attend the recent 2015 TOCA, Turf and Ornamental Communicators Association, conference where I received five awards. FIVE! A big thank you to the folks at TOCA for such a warm welcome, a well-thought out annual meeting and of course the lovely awards. What a great group of people.

We're proud to represent our client Soils Alive with a First Place award for Writing! The award covered all their site content including their blog.

And our other client Preservation Tree Services with a First Place award for Advertising Design...

AND our other client Hydro Galaxy with a Merit Award for Writing on their blog...

I was also honored to take home a Merit Award for Writing for a feature article I contributed to Garden Center Magazine, GIE Media. You can read the ariticle here.

Pretty cool. Again, a big thank you to TOCA for the good times and recognition. It just makes me all warm and fuzzy on the inside.