#93 DESIGNING THE STORE * (revised 6/3) tree and shrub processing

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This area, a triangle portion, located at the far corner of the site, is designated for the processing of nursery stock arriving at the store. It is close to the drop and storage points of arriving inventory where all equipment is stored and handy for this process. Bulk soils for potting and re-potting are located here, the empty pot storage is here, as well as the machinery necessary for making bags of potting soil for customers. A portable processing shack is positioned in this area during all the early season. The refuse dumpsters for the store are located in this area for easy cleanup. Pallets are used extensively in this processing. The pallet storage area is located very near this site

The bark shack #M is located at this area for processing signs, holding tools, and other business activities related to this work. It is powered and equipped like all the other similar shacks at the sites.

S1. Storage of new and used pots for in store potting and re-potting

S2. Storage are for broken bags of retail products used for potting and re-potting

S3. Storage for bags of peat moss, vermiculite and perlite etc used for processing

S4. Bin for specially mixed potting soils for processing

S5. Bin for specially mixed potting soils for processing

S6. Mixing bin for producing mixed potting soils

S7. Dumpsters and cardboard recycling bins for the store

S8. Used pots to be transported off site and re-cycled

S9. Storage of re-usable and discarded pallets

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Checklist For Nursery Stock Processing

Physical plan and procedures

Physical Plan

Why is it located in this area of the site?

First, it is the best use of this area, not really handy for customer traffic. We are able to run equipment and make noise and get dirty and not disturb our customers. Second, it is near all the unloading action and all the materials needed for processing.

What is located in this section?

The forklifts, pallets, pots, soils, hand tools, and large equipment needed for producing our own soils.

What happens in this section?

All nursery stock that is in need of extra processing comes to this area; damaged plants, plants for re-potting or “dolling up”, all plants slated for discard to see if they can be redeemed in any way and plants that come in bare root and need to be potted. They will also be repriced and re-tagged on this site after they have been processed.

Procedures

Who decides what is to be re-processed and how it is to be done?

The nursery section leader is on the unloading and processing site regularly when plants arrive. He or she is also the “gatekeeper” to determine what needs to be done with all dead and damaged plants. He or she directs what plants need to be potted, the pot sizes, pruning and shaping needed, the kind of soil to be used, what fertilizer to apply or chemicals to be used in the case of insects or diseases and any extra care in handling the plants during the processing.

What kinds of plants are moved here for processing or re-processing?

Generally all woody nursery stock. Trees, shrubs, evergreens, vines, roses, etc. We will process perennials in one gallon containers and larger. The soft plants, bedding plants, for example are not processed in this area.

How are you efficient and labor saving in this section?

We have seen a lot of garden stores that absolutely break the backs of their employees and take tremendous time and effort in this process. We have observed efficient operations and continue to improve upon our procedure.

First, all of this work is done with pallets and equipment. This stuff is just too heavy to be lifting and carrying and lifting again. Roses are a good example. They are potted and placed on pallets and the pallet is placed on a trailer and golf cart for transport to the customer display area. Second, we have observed other garden stores and have copied their practices in the potting of large ball and burlapped evergreens.

When we need to pot large balled and burlapped evergreens and trees, we eliminated the lifting as much as possible. We place several pots on a pallet and used a bobcat and bucket to drop a small load of soil on the bottoms of the pots. Then we either move a load of palletted evergreens even with the pots and slide them off the pallet into the pots. In the case of large trees, we sling and lower the tree into the pot. (see diagram in entry #96). After the evergreen or tree has been positioned, we then use a bobcat and bucket to drop soil into the pots. Any soil that misses the pots is re-scooped and used again. We tamp in the soil and forklift the entire pallet out of the way for re-tagging, watering in, straightened in the pots and grooming. We just do not have back injuries with this system and it works like a charm”

Garden store owner

Wisconsin

Do you use plastic or pulp pots for this operation?

We use both. However, we seek and receive a lot of large re-cycled heavy duty plastic pots. Our goal is to buy no pots. Pulp pots are good but we find that the bottoms rot very fast and they are difficult to reuse. When we buy pots, we buy both inexpensive “blow mold” pots and the the heavy duty plastic kinds. Of course, the huge pots have to be built sturdy to handle the strain of the plants pushing against them. We do not buy pulp pots.

Is water available for this area?

Oh yes, water is critical for this processing.

Who is in charge of this processing section?

The receiving section leader has overall responsibility in consultation with the nursery section leader. He or she is responsible for scheduling, maintaining, and production of this area.

What happens to the plants that are still viable but not saleable at this time?

After the nursery section leader decides they still have value, They are re-processed and groomed and tagged with a first aid designation. They are placed in a first aid section designed in area #U opposite the bark bins. There is adequate metered irrigation in this site. The nursery section leader then makes the call when they should be placed back into customer display or discarded.

I see that you use broken bags of retail products in this processing?

Yes, we do. We use everything that is possible that will benefit the processing of plants, bark bags, peat moss. perlite, vermiculite, sand, gypsum, lime, some kinds of fertilizers and off the shelf chemicals for insects and diseases we have to treat.

We just do not throw any of these products away if they can be of some use. We store and protect these broken or damaged bags near the processing site and mix them into our potting blends as needed.

Are there bathroom facilities in this area?

Yes, we have installed several sani-can portable toilets for the employees in this area a short distance from this processing section.

There is a lot of debris generated from this operation. Are the dumpsters located nearby?

Yes, the dumpsters are very close and can be moved closer to the section if intensive debris discarding is taking place

Can the employees’ process plants in bad weather, snow and rain?

We have purchased and installed some portable “car port” supports and covers for bad weather and excessive sun. They can be easily moved with a forklift when not needed.

#92 DESIGNING THE STORE * (revised 6/3) main parking area

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So much activity occurs in the parking areas of garden stores on busy springtime days. There is constant movement of people and plant materials; carts of flowers, trunks and tailgates open, trailers extended out into the drive lanes, pots being fitted into back seats, large trees hoisted up and on to trucks, loading of bags of mulch and soils, loaders and forklifts blocking the driveway areas as well as customers, often with children, in and out of vehicles watching, loading, helping, and talking. We are aware of this unusual activity and have designed our parking areas to accommodate these situations.

“I will never shop at that place again. The parking spots are too narrow and someone always dings my car.”

The main parking area is located on the side of the complex. This is the largest of four parking options for our customers during the season. There is a also front parking lot and limited street parking on several sides of the complex.

In addition, we have arranged with a neighboring large church next to the business for overflow parking (excluding Sundays) in those crazy months of high volume.

“We provide several services to the church for this privilege. They receive springtime bedding flowers for their landscaping at our cost, we hire some members of the church to direct traffic in this lot and to shuttle our customers and their goods to and from the store with an extended seated golf cart and trailer, and we support their weekly church program bulletins with our advertising”

Parking lots of businesses can be a tremendous source of pollution in the environment. Our design provides a minimum carbon footprint and still allows for the convenience of our customers. The surface of the lot is a combination of asphalt and compacted gravel. The asphalt, recycled asphalt, is installed on the driving paths of the lot. We have also built collection basins in the drive lane asphalt for gathering runoff. There are large changeable filter shields in the basins that collects any spilled hydrocarbons from the vehicles.

Gravel is the surface for the actual parking stalls. We allow natural grasses to grow from the ground, through the gravel to form a tight uniform mat over the gravel. Any vehicle leakage is filtered through the grasses and gravel before moving into the groundwater. Concrete recycled “curb stops” are positioned and construction "whiskers" are used to indicate the stalls. Mindful of the unusual length and widths of our customer vehicles, we have scaled the parking stalls to be longer and wider than a normal commercial standard. Because the lines marking the stalls cannot be effectively pronounced on a gravel surface, we are mindful that there will be some haphazard parking on the stalls and some dirt and mud in the stalls from time to time. On balance however, this parking area provides an efficient, economical and “green” contribution by green garden gates. We continue to search for other methods to develop permeable stalls and heavy load bearing parking lot drive lanes.

It has been our experience that "swales" and "retention basins" are marginally effective and expensive. Basically these are "ditches" near a parking lot where all the runoff from that lot runs into the ditch. The theory is that if the ditches are planted, all the dirty runoff water from the parking lot will filter through the plants and roots and end up clean when it reaches the groundwater. Bull. What happens is that, no matter what you do to try to correct it, these ditches stop draining and they fill up with water and some will start to stink. You can get a bobcat in there and churn it all up and two weeks later you have standing water again. So what you have it a bunch of ditches filled will water breeding mosquitoes. The tree huggers just love these things but they are a pain in the ass. Another drawback is that these dirty water ditches take up a lot of real estate. They need to be wide and deep so forget any other uses. They are just ditches. These ditches are the accepted method in most cities. In Tulsa, we were able to convince the government that using catch basins with removable changeable filters will do the same thing.

We have also designed in this parking area, an area for large vehicles with long trailers out of the main firing line of activity where they can maneuver and park more easily and safely.

We believe, at green garden gates, that the shopping experience does not end at the cash register. We will be judged whether we succeed or fail with our customers only when the plants and products are carefully placed in the vehicles and the customer is driving out our gates. In our operational chapters discussed later, we talk about how we hire young people to patrol all of the parking areas with golf carts making certain we have happy gardeners right until the end of this experience.

#91 DESIGNING THE STORE * (revised 6/3) the portable shacks

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We see the need for small mobile offices at our stores. They will be primarily used in three areas, receiving nursery stock, the preparation area for plant material and the bulk sales section. Depending on the cost, we will purchase portable commercial office units, construction type offices, construct units or build them ourselves

For one of these, we will locate a used trailer assembly and stick frame a building 10 feet long by 8 feet wide by 8 feet high. It will be roofed and covered with fiberglass translucent panels. All of these portable offices will be wired for electricity and lighted by using a portable cord to the nearest main store outlet. They will be ventilated by an opening window and one can be towed by a forklift to another area, if needed.

Al lwill be equipped with office materials and supplies needed for preparation and check-in, computer, printer, office desk, etc. They will be connected wirelessly to the main servers of the business with a cable connection to the nearest permanent store outlets

We have built three of these shacks for placement in several sections, the receiving area, the processing area, and the bulk sales area. This is the only one that is mounted on a a trailer for moving to other sites, if needed. All of them have the similar equipment for the use intended with the same power hookups.

#90 DESIGNING THE STORE * (revised 6/3) "bagged goods shack"

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A smart garden store owner will ask this question;

Why would a lady buy a bag of bark from me when she can buy the same bag at half the price at Home Depot?

And that owner gets the right answer;

because the lady never has to get dirty.

The kid picks it up, carefully places in her Audi and she drives away.

It is as simple as that.

We believe in superior concierge service at green garden gardens for our customers, especially with bag goods.

The bagged goods shack is a clean and neat operation with a modern well kept building. It measures sixty feet long eight feet deep and twelve feet high. It is roofed , guttered, with a concrete floor and sheathed with translucent fiberglass panels to match the other buildings on the site with a concrete floor. The roof on the back side of the shack forms the roof of the adjacent walkway. The end of the shack is walled high to form a display area #X. It is lighted for evening business, and is equipped with electrical outlets and water spikets for easy cleanup.

There is only one vertical support beam across the face of the building to provide for easy forklift loading and the maneuvering of pallets.

An error,often made in construction of this building, is there are support beams that get in the way of forklifting into the face of the building. Be careful so severely limit these support beams

The shack is set back deep to allow an adequate vehicle loading lane that does not obstruct traffic flow. There is a door leading from the back of the shack directly into the nursery enabling the loading employees to do other tasks in shrubs and trees and still get to the loading area quickly. The shack can hold a wide variety of bark, peat moss, rock, and potting soils and is replenished from a major storage area for these products in another part of the site.

Make the building as "clear span" as possible

#89 DESIGNING THE STORE * (revised 6/3) the nursery shack

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The tree and shrub salespeople at green garden gates need a small comfortable space to conduct business; advise customers, research plants, complete the selling process and frankly, someplace out of the rain and cold on those dreary dead days.

"I looked all over for my nursery guy to help some customers. I found him huddled in the corner of the old dark garage trying to stay warm and dry."

The design for this space is an eight feet wide, eight feet high structure attached to and wraps around one of the connector buildings overlooking the tree and shrub display area. The structure provides adequate room for a number of uses; a desk and chairs and office equipment for consulting and research, places to hang up wet clothing, a group of lockers for personal items, and a small storage area for nursery supplies and small tools.

This shack allows employees who are assigned to the trees and shrubs to perform a number of office tasks, out of the elements, and still be attentive to the customers who venture into their section.

The shack is has a bank of screened viewing windows that open for ventilation. The building is electrically wired and lighted and receives wireless transmission.

Some nursery owners and managers refuse to build an office for their nursery employees. They see the office as a place to "hang out and hide". Silly. We believe that by providing some comforts when doing this damned hard work pays off in spades. So what if they hide once in a while? When the time comes for nothing but "assholes and elbows", they will be there and they will get the job done.

#88 DESIGNING THE STORE * (revised 6/3) the gazebos

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The gazebo structures in the middle of the outdoor nursery area are designed to be a showplace of color, form and beauty. We see perhaps changeable water features, new plant introduction displays, custom plantings of unique pottery, or a large tree in bloom. The designs change often in these gazebos. It is a perfect location for an outdoor jazz quartet during mother’s day weekend is in one of the gazebos. Customers are led into the gazebos naturally as they move along the indoor walkways.

They are open structures using translucent fiberglass panels. The piers and trim work are wooden so the colors can be changed occasionally. There is electricity to the units as well as several wall outlets. The floor is concrete with a floor outlet in the middle of the gazebo. There is a wall switch that actives the lights as well as electrifies the floor outlet. The roof trusses are wooden and painted a neutral color. The sound system (discussed later) enables the jazz quartet to connect so that their music can be heard all through the store.

#87 DESIGNING THE STORE * (revised 6/3) "connector buildings"

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The plan for green garden gates calls for four “connector buildings”. There are of “pole” building construction measuring twenty five feet by twenty five feet. The interior measures about fifteen feet to the open painted rafters. The roof and walls are similar to the walkways, sheathed and covered with translucent fiberglass panels in order to let the natural light into the buildings. Like all green garden gates, the design of these will change depending on the geographical style the region.

We have chosen fiberglass ripple panels for this sheathing and roofing. Other garden store owners have chosen Lexan for this type of covering. We have found it to be too costly for our needs. These ripple panels are often available at home stores at special prices well below a standard retail cost. Once they are screwed down tight to the framework, they are tough and hold up well for many years

The walkways are flush against the connectors. There are no doors to these connectors, only openings. There are panels, high up, that open to allow maximum air movement and ventilation. The buildings are lighted for evening shopping with adequate electrical outlets to handle, for example, a large number of fountains. The floor is concrete that continues the walkway. The remaining area of the floor is gravel.

We see a number of uses for these connectors. We can display garden products that need to be out of the weather for maximum effect; fountains, pottery, garden art etc. We also see a place for local garden clubs and small vendors to set and attend to their displays during the gardening season. We see some “special” buys for our customers housed in the connectors. One or several of the connectors may be in used during the springtime with seminars on gardening subjects. We envision our customers passing through the walkway buildings into the connectors and on to another walkway building, enjoying a new experience shopping in the connectors.

#86 DESIGNING THE STORE * (revised 6/3) nursery walkways

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There are construction requirements that are, in our opinion, absolutely necessary for the sales of plants in the garden store.

First, is the protection of the plant material from the weather. Second, just as important, is the protection of the customers from the weather. These statements seem obvious to any merchant of any product. Surprisingly, garden store owners and operators neglect both to varying degrees.

“It was an hour before closing at the garden store. It had been cold and rainy all day and we were bone tired. The owner just looked at the weather forecast and told us that we all had to cover the bedding plants before we could go home. We got on more clothing and dragged huge sheets of black plastic up to the display beds and tables. We laid the plastic on the flowers and plants and used a bunch of bricks to hold them from blowing away. Late that night it started to get really cold with a clear sky and we saved the plants. Well, not so fast….three hours later into the night, it clouded up again and started to rain hard. When we uncovered the plants the weight of the rain on the plastic smashed all the blooms flat. They weren’t frozen but they sure were awful looking!”

We, at green garden gates, are committed to getting everybody and everything out of the weather as much as possible by the most efficient and economical method.

The covered houses in our design are our answer for this protection. These pole building structures ring the nursery display area. They measure twenty feet wide and ten feet high to the painted rafters. They have open trusses to the roof for an airy feeling and to let excess heat rise into the rafters.

The roof and walls are of translucent fiberglass panels to let light into the plants.

We rejected the idea of a “bubble” roof of temporary plastic. We did not want to replace and repair all the time. The permanent fiberglass panels will save money in product and labor in the years to come.

About every other ten foot, a wall panel section on each side of the walkway slides open for natural ventilation. The sliding panels are closed to protect the plants from cold air, wind, and early spring frosts. Customers can move and shop easily, staying cozy and dry, along the covered walkways. They can freely venture into the nursery display areas though the sliding panels.

Garden store owners who do not have extensive protection for their customers from the weather can expect to lose fifty percent of the day’s sales on a rainy cold day. If they have protection, they can gain back twenty-five percent or more of those sales back.

The eight feet wide concrete walks allow for customer movement with the remaining six feet on each side graveled for benches and display carts.

We will say it over and over again. NEVER SLOPE THE CONCRETE FLOORS. This is never more true than in the walkway buildings. Can you imagine a 300 pound loaded steel cart rolling toward a young child because someone forgot to block the wheels?

There are several areas of the walkway houses where the roof has been elevated to allow for large trees and shrubs to pass through the buildings with little effort.

No customer wants a skinned up tree that a garden store guy tried to put through a litttle doorway

Irrigation lines are suspended into the rafters with the irrigation heads pointed down. Wall hose bibs are mounted at many locations in the walkway buildings for easy hose spot watering of plant products.

We have suspended all the irrigation and electrical lines into the rafters to keep them off the ground, clean and free from damage

The building does contain some wall outlets for future displays. The walkway buildings are lighted by steel conduits connected to florescent bulb fixtures along the rafters.

Where is an electrical outlet when you need one? We will need them in the walkways at some point for some reason. We wanted them installed right away to avoid uneccesary costs in the future.

#85 DESIGNING THE STORE * (revised 6/3) the site plan

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Pictured is the detailed site plan of green garden gates of Oklahoma. Each area will be discussed in detail in the next chapters.

A. “Blockhouse” Main Building and Manager’s Residence

B. Blockhouse “Wings”

C. “Bookends” Buildings

D. “Connector" Buildings

E. Covered Walkways and Plant Display Areas

F. Main Parking Area

G. Front Parking Area

H. Daily Deliver Corridor

I. Semi Unloading Area and Shrub and Tree Storage/Display

J. “Healed in” Shrub Display area and/or Feature Fountain Display

K. Back Lot Vehicle Exit

L. “Gazebo” Buildings

M. Receiving Shack

N. Main Gates

O. Nursery Shack

P. Delivery Alley Gate

Q. Semi Entrance Gates

R. Bag Goods Shack

S. Shrub and Tree Finishing Area

T. Customer Access Gate to Shrub and Tree Storage/Display

U. Bulk Product Storage/Sales/Loading

V. Tree Display and Permanent Show Plantings

W. Patio Display Area

X. Parking Display Area

Y. The Courtyard

Z. Bark Sales Shack

A1. The Store Front