#104 DESIGNING THE STORE * (revised 6/3) fences, gates, walls and water

Fencing and gates

Fences are important to us for two purposes, security and ornamentation.

As we all know, our money is mostly outside with our plants and products. just ready for anyone to load into a pickup and drive off in the middle of the night. We would like to eliminate the six foot fence entirely. Unfortunately, we have to live with it. However, there is no reason to create an ugly statement of our business, their first impression of green garden gates. We have seen owners sink a lot of money into fancy stuff and yet their customers are greeted with shabby broken down fences, gates hanging sideways on their hinges, and big rusty logging chains dangling on the ground.

We are using this perimeter fence for another reason. We believe that it is to our advantage to get our customers into our parking areas before our store officially opens, to get settled, get out the baby strollers and spend some time looking at our outer displays. We also would like to prevent a lot of vehicles stacking at our gates waiting for the store opening.

Security Fencing

For the side and rear fencing of our entire site ( no fencing behind the concrete bark bins), we are using chain link fencing, six feet in height. We will sink heavy duty steel posts in concrete and the rails of the fence frame are a good steel grade. There will some areas around the perimeter where we will want to shield our operations from the public and our business neighbors. We will use plastic inserts for this purpose.

Our goal is to use as much recycled posts, uprights, hardware and fabric as possible from local sources. We have found that highway departments and other governmental agencies are a good source for this used fencing material.

“Owners who install chain link fencing make some mistakes that will cost them over time. Use heavy duty steel posts and heavy gauge rail for the construction and sink those posts in concrete. Otherwise, it will be a repair nightmare all the time after the first couple of years. It is also important to choose a long standing reputable fence company in the community to install the fencing for quick service and repair.

The front fencing will be more decorative. We use the same steel posts and rails as we do in the chain link fence construction. However, with the fence and gate faces, we are using for the slats or pickets, made of one inch tubular steel square pieces that have been powder coated a hunter green and spaced wide.

Passing by the movement of water

We like the movement of water at green garden gates. In addition to the fountains in our display areas, we want the driving public to enjoy an unobstructed view of moving water as they pass by our stores.

We have created openings in our fence for just that purpose. There are four twelve foot portals which open and close with sliding manual gates for security at closing time. Those openings house water basins and huge basalt fountains with surrounding seasonal landscaping. These fountains, like all others at our stores, are for sale and are easily removed and replaced with another.

We need the ability to close and lock these portals for security from theft and vandalism. The last thing we want is to drive up in the morning and find red colored die in all our water features!

The massive basalt rock fountains are manufactured by a company in the mountain states. Because of their weight and size, they are to be professionally installed by companies chosen by green garden gates in each of our locations.

We have gone farther with this concept. In area #J, of the site plan, on the corner of our property, we have installed a huge pool and basalt rock waterfall for an impressive water display. This area is also landscaped seasonally with gates that slide open and close for full view by the driving public and secured when we close in the evening and seasonally

Security Gates

The front gates #1, the main entrances and exits for our customers are the “green garden gates”, the signature for all of our stores. Customers will immediately identify our Oklahoma store the same as our Utah store. We will be using a two twelve foot long chain link frames at each entrance mounted on rollers that will open and close and stored behind the adjacent fencing. They are both remotely and manually controlled. Instead of installing chain link fabric, we will pre-drill the rails to accommodate tubular steel stats that are powder coated a shade of Hunter Green. We will ornament the gates with decorative hinges and handles to give the feeling of a garden gate. The uprights will be reinforced and pre-drilled to handle electrical for lighting and to support large decorative arches above the gates, high enough (17 feet) to allow large truck traffic.

If you don’t want to chunk away ice and snow to get all the gates open, be smart and have the gates mounted high enough to allow snow and ice to build up below and still be able to get them open

#1 4 twelve foot wooden covered automatic roller gates

#2 2 six foot automatic roller gates/ standard chain link fabric

#3 1 six foot standard gate/ standard chain link fabric

#4 2 six foot automatic roller gates/ standard chain link fabric

#5 1 twelve foot swing gate/ standard chain link fabric

#6 1 six foot swing gate/standard chain link fabric

#7 1 six foot swing gate/standard chain link fabric

#8 1 six foot swing gate/standard chain link fabric

#9 1 twelve foot swing gate/standard chain link fabric

4 twelve foot slide gates fountain portals

2 twenty foot gates/ front fence waterfall area

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Decorative Fences, Gates and Walls

An integral ingredient of garden and outdoor living is the use of fences, gates, windows and walls. They are the backgrounds that bring the beauty to plants. Displays in a garden store that lack these background features cheats the plants that we try to sell. At green garden gates, we use lots of them, all kinds, shapes, textures and colors. We display these features that are most prevalent for the geographical region. In our Tulsa store, we have adopted a southwest theme for the backgrounds

#103 DESIGNING THE STORE */ (revised 6/3) the store front

“We’ve got a good cardiovascular parking lot stride going and it’s bringing us right into the entrance.

So forget what those windows (or the store front) are meant to accomplish.

When they face a parking lot, if the message in the windows and store front is not big and bold and short and simple it is wasted!”

“Why We Buy”

By Paco Underhill

Some owners get it. Others either haven’t got a clue or they don’t think it is important. Some of the finest garden stores look dismal when the customer approaches, half dead plants sitting sideways in beat up pots, a hodgepodge of crap just thrown out there and mixed up, or nearly nothing or absolutely nothing at all.
Some owners are determined that all of their plants, their property, needs to be on the buying side of the cash register, kind of locked down until the cash is forked out for the stuff. You know, it’s that stealing thing again. So we get back the radiator shop look. No adventure, no excitement out there. Good introduction to get the customer’s juices flowing and the money loosened up in the wallet, ain’t it? A absolute dead zone that is suppose to entice the customer into a world of springtime color!!












It is just not that hard to bring life to the front of the garden store, give the customers a reason to pull in and park. Even the smallest little business can do it.










We want our customers at green garden gates, whether they are whizzing by at forty miles an hour or walking briskly into our entrance, to see a plant, vision that plant in their garden and already own that plant. The rest is just mechanical, picking it out and paying for it. Any place where we can get “curb appeal”, we are all over it.


The front of our main store, like the show gardens near the street, is ideal for curb appeal. Here is our plan for the front


#1 This area is covered by a nearly flat awning of translucent fiber glass panels. We know customers need weather protection as they, especially when they exit the store with their purchases, readying themselves as they move to their vehicles or waiting to be picked up. Since the awning causes mild to deep shade, plants that tolerate low light are used here for display as well as plant care products that need shelter to preserve their packaging.

We see several vigorous vines covering the walls of the structure around the doorways and decorative pots with shade plants, We see some larger gardening products that are more difficult to remove and steal (we too, are concerned about theft!) such as a fancy wheelbarrows with a bags of fertilizers in it. all the display areas in the front will have working fountains or water features.

On the outer edge of the awning, where the light it better, there show the latest fresh plants, blooming small trees, rhododendrons and azaleas in bloom and a few apple trees with the apples forming on them. We see color banners, and flags in the entire front display as well as other props that create interest and excitement the gardener.







#2 The front display continues on in this area from the awning, with plants that are very sun tolerant, larger plants than could fit under the awning, with wide openings for customer traffic to the entrance and exit doors.





#4 and #5 This area is the entrance to one of our “show gardens” The area will be surrounded by a low decorative fence in keeping with the style of the store and the geography of the region. In New England, it may be a white picket fence. In the Napa Valley of California, it may be a grape stake fence. The plants will not be permanently planted, however, in order to change out and freshen the themes from time to time.

The area will be mounded with several examples of the bark that we sell. Plants will be hand selected and nested in the bark in appealing color and texture combinations. There will be a feature prop that is in keeping with the region. In this store in Oklahoma, the feature will be a Conestoga wagon used by the “sooners” in the historic land grab of the state. All the plants in these front entrance areas will be marked with descriptions and price as well as directions to locate those plants for sale in the store.


Since #4 is the driving pathway for our vehicles entering and exiting the indoor stalls, the fence, with no plants and bark in this drive lane, will be open on one stall always and a movable fence and plants on the other stall for the off season months.



#3 This is ideal for really big stuff, large B and B trees in huge decorative pots, large evergreen and deciduous shrubs, a huge fountain, waterfall, or another type of water feature. This area will be also surrounded by the low fence that extends from #4 and #5.