Shade, Flowering and Ornamental Trees
“Son, that’s where the money is……over there in those trees”
The advice of an old garden store owner
It just makes a lot of sense in every way to have a beautiful selection of trees at green garden gates.
Newly constructed homes will bring in their owners to garden stores for as many as 12 trees. Additionally, each new homebuyer moving into an established property will replace or add as many as 6 additional trees. Couple those purchases with plant care products and gardening items to maintain the trees, it becomes real money fast.
Think about a new housing development in a community with 300 new homes. Twelve trees with an average cost of 100.00 per tree times the number of new homes. Add the additional trees for next time buyers of this property together with the plant care products and gardening items for the trees and you’re talking three quarters of a million bucks just from that new housing alone!
On average, ornamental, shade and flowering trees accounts between 10-15% of our total gross sales in each of our green garden gates stores.
What varieties of trees do you sell?
Each one of our stores is a little different with varieties. We have a model selection for all the stores, trees that are popular in all the areas of the United States, red maples, oaks, willows, flowering crabapples and plums, etc. In order to custom fit our tree inventories with a particular store, We do extensive research with county extension bureaus, garden writers and horticultural clubs to determine the most widely used trees in the area and add those trees to our lineup.
How many varieties are in your inventory for sale?
We want a minimum selection of 40-70 shade trees, 10-20 flowering trees, and 7-15 specialty ornamental trees, such as Japanese Maples. We try to keep a minimum depth of 10 for each tree and many more of a variety that is popular.
How about the size, height and branching of the trees for sale?
We want every one of our trees to look like “stud muffins”, strong, straight, well branched, with solid trunks and beautiful leaves. We demand that the tree size be no less than 1 1/2 caliper, a “select” grade from the grower, well branched with a superior root system . For shade trees, our minimum is 8 feet high in the pot and flowering trees, 6 feet high in the pot. Specialty trees can vary in size but the grade always has to be a grower’s “select” from his inventory.
Who purchases the trees for the family?
Unlike flowers purchased by the wife or the tomato plants by the husband, the purchase of trees is often made together and selected by each with very different criteria in mind. A wife or significant other will pick trees for the beauty of the bark, branching, flowering and leaves. Husbands or others pick trees for the mechanics of planting and the proper area for the tree in the landscape. Each wants the approval of the other before lugging the tree home. It’s a little like buying a new car. Nobody wants to dig up some wimpy thing and re-plant another!
Do you always have your tree selection in pots or containers of some sort?
We always do. We just do not fool around with bare root trees for sale. Like our roses, the time to get those plants into pots comes too soon in the gardening season and the loss or a plant that has to be shifted into pots, midseason, from bareroot never looks as vigorous after this procedure. There are times when we may invite a organization to sell or give away small bare root trees for a community planting, but we want all of our trees in pots or some sort of contained root system.
We purchase almost all of our trees bareroot, except larger basketed trees and some specialty potted trees. We pot the plants right on site using a special blend of soils and nutrients we have developed for potting in all of our stores. The large specimen trees are generally delivered, displayed and sold in their wire baskets only.
Have you looked at the tree selection in a local garden store these days? With exceptions, it is a jungle out there!, tiny weak looking things falling on the ground and on each other, infested with insects, broken branches and bad pruning, faded pictures and signing, containers torn and smashed, with the planting soil concrete hard. Nice presentation, right? And to add insult to injury, there is no real depth in selection or numbers for which to choose. Take it or leave it lady!
Surprisingly, some of the big box stores have started to understand the sale of trees. There selection is often far more superior to the local garden store, bright fresh signing, good looking trees, and or course about half the price with a better guarantee. “Dissing” the superstores for poor quality and selection in trees does not work much anymore!
Take a walk through your local home center garden departments in the spring and you will see how these companies are marketing their tree selection. Since their entry into this plant and plant care business, big box home centers have become the undisputed leader in product presentation.
Each tree has a collar make of weather and fade resistant material secured by an adhesive strip. The collars are color coded and identified by use in the home landscape; fruit tree, shade tree or flowering tree. The plant guarantee is printed directly on the collar. With this bold identification, the customer easily can locate and select the correct tree type.
We are unsure whether this collar, over a period of time, will not damage or disfigure the tree. Our experience is that collars, blocking out the natural sunlight and weather, will soften and weaken that part of the tree trunk as well as permanently discolor the tree.
Tired of picking up those trees?
Tired of propping them up, pinning them down, or buying ugly expensive holding molds that clutter up the place? Here is a little device that we found in garden centres in England several years ago.
It consists of rolls of non-stretch woven fabric line with an outer twist of thicker fabric strand around the line and clips which are flexible plastic.
String and secure the line tightly between two non-giving supports. Attach one end of the clip to the line, then around the tree trunk and clip the other end to the line. It works? The trees stay right in position under any conditions because the clip is lodged against that thicker fabric and will not move. The clip will not chafe the tree at all. It is easy to unclip after the sale and re-clip another. Problem solved!
What size and kinds of pots are used for the trees?
We try to stay in the range of 10 gallon to 25 gallon pots. Anything smaller just makes the trees look cheap and unimpressive, as well as constricts the roots for proper care of watering. We use plastic pots only, and in the ten gallon size, we are able to use “blow pots”. Any larger plastic pot must be molded for durability and transport.
Where to you purchase the trees that you sell?
We have several excellent national suppliers of bareroot trees. Among these are Bailey Nurseries and Carlton Plants. We do, however, want local or regional tree growers and search the area for them. As in fruit trees, we are establishing young growers to produce trees for us to our specifications. This program is young but very successful so far.
This garden store owner chooses to sale selected trees in the inventory all through the selling season. He has a slick way of doing it. He prints on inexpensive fade resistant waterproof heavy bond paper and attaches the sign to the tree trunk by hand stapling. The signs easily stay attached through all kinds of weather.
We like this idea but we would add some explanation as our customer will want to know the reason for the reduction in price. They do not want a bad tree. We would explain that the tree is sound and healthy but the reason can be for example, our inventory is too high with this variety.
Where do you sell the trees in the store?
On the map, all areas marked in yellow are for our shade, flowering and ornamental trees. There is back stock available in our processing area marked “i”. We also, have “teaser” movable displays of trees scattered throughout the sales area of our stores.
Too often, the displays of trees in garden stores are shoved to the back, away from the normal flow of customer traffic. At green garden gates, we believe that by integrating them into the mainstream of sales activity, they will remain a successful category. We also believe that the beauty of trees gives our overall appeal quiet dramatic. Our main sales area is surrounded and defined by our trees in all directions. Our parking areas feature our large trees. We have found these areas to be easily accessible for sales, movement and maintenance.
Walk around your tree selection once and a while and this is what you might see. This look inviting, right?
How do you market trees at greengardengates?
First we have incorporated all trees into our discount program that we have discussed in our subject entry on fruit trees. Any tree can fall in this discount program. Our goal, as in fruit trees is to keep our customers returning year after year to develop their landscaping. This discount program provides strong incentives to do this.
Shade trees, in particular, fit nicely with our emphasis on sustainability of lifestyle for the homeowner; reduction of summer cooling of the house, durability of a tree without continual replacement or re-purchase, recycling of materials from a tree, etc. We can easily market the value of a shade tree.
As in all our products, we call upon the experts both in our stores and in the community to promote trees as a good investment. Through in store seminars, our websites and our handout materials, we are able to keep these tree sales growing and profitable each season.
