Hello,
As I write this, I am in our vehicle driving to Dallas. Don’t worry my wife is driving. I am testing out a new Wordpress application that allows me to blog via my Blackberry. So far it’s working like a charm.
I spent Friday in Tulsa and got to visit with a customer while I was there. They concur that weather is the determining factor in having a successful year.
I’m meeting with a few customers tomorrow in DFW then heading home on Tuesday. If I can get ahold of Curly, we might swing by Nortex Greenhouses and say Hi before we head home.
As long as this app works, look for more posts tomorrow or follow me on Twitter @parksbrothers since I will be posting there too.
Now if I can just figure out how to post pictures too…
Have you seen that TV show called “Chuck” on NBC? It is one of my favorite shows. Chuck is a normal guy who is a bit of a geek who accidentally gets downloaded with a computer of national secrets. Chuck is a good guy and he wants to use the knowledge in his brain to help people so his CIA and NSA handlers help him become a spy. This weeks episode was titled “Chuck vs. The Nacho Sampler.” All the episodes are title “Chuck vs.” something. So my title this week is my salute to Chuck
In a lot of ways, the green industry reminds me of Chuck. Individually, we have all this information in our heads that we have to figure out how to use to save the day (and our bottom lines) sometimes on a weekly basis. And every time we turn around we face seemingly insurmountable odds that are outside of our control like the weather and the economy.
I spoke to a couple of customers yesterday. Both conversations had two main threads, the economy and the weather. With the economy, one of the customers has seen an marked increase in past due accounts which is something we are seeing as well, and it’s accounts that should not be late. This customer suggested that his customers are viewing the recession as a license to pay late, and I agree with him.
With the poor economy businesses are relaxing their collections to allow their customers more time to collect from their customers as companies should do for their good customers. As with anything there seem to be people ready and willing to take advantage of this by waiting an extra 30 days to pay.
Both opinions of the weather was that January’s weather just plain sucked.
One of the customers said that his landscape sales in January were down almost 99%! It has been so wet/cold/icy/snowy here in the South that he was unable to get any jobs completed or even started.
The other attributed his lack of sales to both the weather and the economy. Customers just were not willing to spend the money right now and the jobs that he did have were behind because of the weather.
So now January’s jobs have to be completed in February along with February’s jobs and the receivables are pushed back 30 days.
I do believe that there is a bright side to all of this. The extreme cold that we have had here in the south combined with all the rain should make for a pretty good spring for landscapers and garden centers. Tender perennials will have to be replaces along with trees broken by ice. Semi-hardy annuals in the deep south froze out and will have to be replaced.
The one thing that keeps me hesitant about spring is the weather pattern we are in now. We are getting rain or a winter storm about every 5-7 days. If the pattern holds it will be disastrous for us all. If the weather cooperates and we are able to have the nice weekends, we will have a great spring.
For the fun of it here’s some Chuck for you!
. . . and my wife trying to hit me with a snowball
We made it back from the Arkansas and Gulf States show late Monday night. We took an extra day and toured the Civil War Battlefield in Vicksburg, Mississippi. We weren’t that impressed with the park, but we were also on a bit of a time crunch and didn’t stop to read every placard (there were only about 1000 of them).
It was back to work on Tuesday after sleeping in a little. I’ve compiled our tentative mum and poinsettia orders for this year. If you have any requests or want to book a couple of thousand pots, now is the time to let us know. I will get with the sales team next week for their inputs then get the orders turned in.
We had quite a bit of spring material to plant this week. Lots of vegetative cuttings to stick. We received another shipment of Stepables® plugs that we planted. We also planted #6 Confetti flats and our second planting of combo baskets and deco pots. Combos have been tough this year. I get about 1/2 of my cuttings from Syngeta and they have cut 2-3 items on every shipment which makes it difficult to make a combo when you are missing 1/3 of the plants. So far we have managed to plant our numbers but some of the combos were made up of the leftover liners. I let the planting crew get creative with them. They usually do a good job with the color combinations.
The NWS predicted an ice storm for us last night, but the temps stayed up so we dodged that bullet. It rained a lot last night and this morning. The rain changed to sleet about noon then to snow about 1:00 pm. They are predicting snow for the rest of the day and tonight.
Our new seeder arrived this week, so look for some video of that baby in action. Also I will be posting some more pics and videos of the plantings next week.
See you then.
We are all getting ready to the AR show in Hot Springs (www.argia.org) this week. Here is a link to the show’s program. Two of my sales team have already left for the Gulf States Horticulture Expo (www.gshe.com) and are visiting customers on the way down to Mobile. After I finish with the Arkansas show, I am leaving from there for the Gulf States show. My plan is to be there on Saturday. We’ll see how that goes. It’s an 11 hour drive from Hot Springs to Mobile, but I’m not going to try to make it in a day.
I still need to get everything together for the trip and to pack. I hate packing so I am procrastinating. I’ll do it tomorrow morning.
We received our clematis shipment on Sunday and planted it today. We also are planting our mandevilla today as well. There are quite a few shipments of cuttings and liners coming in this week so I will have a lot of stuff to take pictures of and blog about when I get back.
Here is a little preview to some of the new additions to our spring line up this year:
These begonias are awesome but a real pain to grow. However, the end result is worth it. The orange-red blooms are really vibrant and eye-catching. We trialed some last year and sold almost all of them in one weekend. Your customers will lover these. Bonfire Begonias will be available in #10 baskets.
This coleus has a close to true red color that really stands out in landscapes. Red Head has a growth habit that is compact and does not produce flower spikes. I am anxious to see how Red Head does in combinations. This picture is from the Botanical Gardens of the Ozarks in Fayetteville, AR when the AR Green Industry did a day session for landscapers last August. Red Head Coleus will be available in #4.5 Premium pots.
Chocolate Mint Coleus is not a new coleus, but it is new for us. With it’s dark foliage highlighted by lime green edges, we think it will be a popular accent plant for shady gardens and containers.