You Can Do It

It seems like whenever we go out of town to visit another place. We get envious of the plants that we see. Whenever we go out of town we visit the local garden center and botanical garden. The garden center that we visit always seems to have things running a little smoother and a little better than us and we always think they display things a little better than we do. The plants that we see around the town that we’re visiting always seem a little healthier and better placed. Of course, most of the places we visit are not farther south than we are so that explains some of that, but I think some of it is the grass is always greener on the other side thing. We talk about how we can do things better when we get back home as far as the business goes or even the plants that we use in our garden.

By the time we get home, we realize that we got it pretty good. Mimi and I and the Martinson family has been at this for a long time. Most of the garden centers that we visit are eight or 10 years old and are doing a great job but still working out the kinks. The Martinson Garden center business started somewhere around 1960. We’ve been through the ups and the downs of the countries economy, and the changes that have come along that have taken time away from everyone’s time to spend in the yard. We have managed to ride out some tough times economically and otherwise and we have managed to find ways to get through the new way of doing things. We won’t stop visiting other places because we always learn something new or meet someone that has something important to say about running a business like ours but I remind Mimi that it’s been almost 70 years. If we have not learned how to do this yet we’re not going to learn it.

The nurseries that impress us the most are those that have been taken over by the second or even third generation of family members. It is those garden centers that it becomes obvious that there have been some recent changes from the original founders of the nursery to one of the kids who grew up in the business, took interest in it and knows how to upscale through technology. Our industry is one of the last industries that do things the way we do. Most full Service garden centers will greet you as you enter, guide you to where you’re going and educate you on what it is you are doing. We will pick out the plants for you, put them on the buggy, pull the buggy around for you and see it all the way through checkout when we will put a trunk liner in your car so we don’t get it any messier than it already is and load what you just bought up into your car in a way that the plants will make it home uninjured. I can’t think of any other business that does that anymore. I don’t get out and shop much for other things, but I do believe it would be difficult to find someone who would hold my hand all the way through any kind of shopping experience.

I also believe there is no other way to have a garden center and not be full service. I don’t think sales would be very good if a person was on their own to make their own decisions about things like which pot would look good by their front door. Which plants would look good and do well in that pot and what soil and how much to use in each pot. If the customer doesn’t own a truck getting some of the big purchases home will be impossible without delivery. We then will hook up a trailer and grab 2 guys off the sales floor to get the purchase safely to the customers house or business and put everything where the client wants it. Can’t get more full service than that. We even offer a service that will plant that set up for you. Without the help of a trained garden center assistant the customer would have to know how to take care of those plants as far as watering, fertilization, and pest control would go. I shutter to think what would happen if a person goes into our room where we sell herbicides and pesticides with nobody to guide them through. It would be easy to use the wrong chemical and kill your entire lawn on a Saturday morning.

There are people who know enough to get through without any help but for the most part, it is overwhelming to walk into a garden center and find your way around and be successful with what you purchase for your DIY project. Most of the garden centers that we visit around the country seem very helpful and very pleasant to shop. Most of the places we visit make it easy for people to get around with heavy things by using carts and wagons and having a fairly level place for which someone to pull those wagons around. I will always wish that our 9 acres were a little more level in the areas where our customer shop. We try to take the buggies from customers to make it a little easier for them, but some just won’t let us. I joke with them that they can skip their Pilates or workout session for that day since they had shopped at Garden Works.

I started my career in this industry at Green Oak nursery in Jackson, which is the garden center that my mother and father started nearly 70 years ago. I still know some of the same customers that used to shop there and certainly see their kids and their grandkids continuing the tradition of shopping at garden centers and accepting our help. It’s fun to bump into some of those folks and listen to some of their memories and stories of back in the day when my dad was around raising cane and having fun at his garden centers. I was mostly up there in the early days because I was grounded or in trouble about something but in spite of that I wound up with a love and passion for the business and for gardening itself. The business and gardening are two very different things. The business entails helping other people get their projects done, making sure our landscape jobs come out well for our clients and then running the day to day stuff like keeping the bills paid and keeping the employees paid and keeping the place full of stuff that people buy. Gardening at home is where we find our peace and where we get to try some of the things that we offer at our business. I learn from customers about new plants, new soils, and new ways of doing things that I get eager to get home and try out for myself.

Over the 40 years that we have been in the Ridgeland location we have seen a lot of changes in the way business is done and the way people shop. We were here before cell phones existed, and before everyone had a computer in their house. I know there are some industries that are concerned that AI will have some effect on the way their jobs are done. I don’t see any threat for people in the nursery industry. AI will get wet and muddy real quick and probably walk off mad and quit. The bigger changes for us really came when sports on the weekends became bigger than anything else. Of course, college and professional sports on the television or local has always been a pretty big deal, but that was usually a nighttime thing on a Saturday night. But now sports start when kids are in the first or second grade, which requires traveling to other places in the state and sometimes other places in the country. Those are the weekends that people pack up the entire family and leave their homes to be a part of their kids sports life. It wasn’t that long ago that weekends were for cranking up the lawnmower and the edger and the weedeater while someone else in the family planted flowers and watered and did other things outside. Those things happened either happily or made great punishments for kids that were rotten like in my case.

Of course the deer population in Mississippi has not helped our industry much. It is so

disheartening to have spent the time and the money on the perfect plants only to have the

plowed down that night by an unruly gang of white tails. I know a lot of people who have thrown in the gardening towel because it happened to them more than once. I believe that when someone throws in the towel that easily they may have been looking for a reason to find another hobby anyway, this was their ticket out. There are ways to garden in deer country. It takes studying deer habits and some diligence but it can be done. Another big change that has occurred in our time is that not that long ago when you bought a house it still needed sod, dirt work, a fence and everything else that goes outside. Now it’s very unusual to find a house that doesn’t have at least those things already done to it so that changed the way that people shop for their garden needs. Most people around here people don’t own a lawnmower or weedeater anymore. I don’t blame them, there’s not much work that’s harder to do and it takes up space in the garage to keep all the equipment that it takes to do a good job when there are so many people out there that do a great job for a reasonable price that allows you to focus on other things that are important to you.

When that started it kind of ended the little bit of time that people had left to get out in their yards and see what improvements could be made or what could be changed or added. Once we see that our grass is mowed for the most part we check that yard off the list. As we get a little older, those things in the yard start to matter more. by the time we start to care more about those things, our bodies are beat up and stiff to the point where some of those things are hard to do. We are one of the industries that feel economic downturns pretty quickly. Even though yard stuff is necessary because everybody lives somewhere it is a bit of a luxury to get to do crazy gardening. When times get tough economically I think we get marked off the list before going out to eat a fancy meal does.

The metro area has some of the best restaurants of any city that we’ve been to. I have noticed that the restaurants around our town are always full every night so I’m not really sure how much of an economic downturn it would take for people to slow down on going out to eat lunches and dinners as much. It’s easy to not go to a garden center when we’re keeping a tight grip on the wallet because all you’re not buying is a lot of hard work and a potential dead plant in the future. Mimi and I have lived through two major economic downturns, and what we noticed is that people tend to not sell their homes and cut back on vacations which means they are staying at home more. Like with Covid when everybody was at home, even though it was against their will they began to notice their surroundings more, and since garden centers were deemed essential during that time, it was a huge boon to our business. People upgraded their yards, installed irrigation systems, started growing their own vegetables and studying plants that they would like to have. iPhone gardeners have grown quite a bit and it has been very good for our business as people have begun to form ideas of what they would like to have.

As difficult as it must be these days for younger people to get by with their paychecks and the cost of housing and food and everything else. It surprises me to see how many young people shop up here for a quench to be outside and to be a part of nature. Some budgets allow for a few house plants to keep them happy enough, like having a pet. Some budgets allow for more like vegetable and herb gardening and adding flowers to the existing landscape. The young people that shop up here are more prone to doing their own work, which is really nice to see. We try to arm them with as much information as we can so they will be successful when they spend that hard earned dollar on something they care so much about. The garden centers around Jackson and Madison want them to be as successful as they can be because we know there is no end once you begin gardening. The people that spend money and don’t have good success won’t last long as potential long time customers.

It is an expensive hobby that is very satisfying and worth every penny (I guess I should say nickel since pennies are disappearing ) if they are being successful along the way. It makes waking up on weekends a lot easier when you don’t have to try to figure out what to do with your young family. Kids love to go outside with their parents and help and do stuff and learn. I think once that becomes the habit they would choose that over a ride somewhere where the family winds up not really together in the real sense of being together. Getting down in the dirt on your hands and knees is what makes kids happy and it’s free and easy for them. It’s not free for us parents and not really easy but it forms a relationship and teaches kids something they could never get hanging out at a movie or something like that. I think doing a little gardening and understanding why they’re doing it and that a little allowance might come along with it prepares a kid for what really comes along in life, that little troubles can be overcome with a little hard work. I think that’s the most important lesson in life. I hope your summer months are all you hoped they would be, its about time to go into survival mode, for yourselves and your plants.