Sweet Home Chicago
Every November, Garden Centers of America (GCA) organizes a holiday garden center tour, and I have attended every one for the past four years. When you go on these tours, all you are expected to do is make sure you don’t miss the bus and learn as much as you can from each stop. As an attendee, you never really know what went on to make this tour possible.
Until this past tour, I was one of those attendees, clueless to the behind-the-scenes action that takes place when putting a tour together. However, in 2006, I had the privilege of being asked to be a part of the GCA’s Holiday Tour in Chicago, Ill., Nov. 13-16, 2006. The group was chaired by Sue Amatangelo from Ball Horticultural and consisted of Dave Meder from Home & Garden Showplace, Bill Calkins from Ball Publishing and myself. Everyone worked hard to pull off a fabulous tour in the Windy City.
The committee met every month for an entire year, working with GCA staff Shanan Molnar and Clint Alban, planning, mapping and making key decisions to ensure this tour was a hit, and let me tell you, it was (this is not just a biased committee member speaking, either).
Christmas In Chicago
The tour was three full days of visiting gardens in and around Chicago. There were 16 stops on the tour, including:
- K & W Greenery, Janesville, Wis.
- Village Green, Rockford, Ill.
- True Value Harvard Distribu-tion Center, Harvard, Ill.
- Platt Hill Nursery, Carpenters-ville, Ill.
- Atrium Garden Center, Lake Zurich, Ill.
- Pesche’s Flowers, Des Plaines, Ill.
- Schaeffer’s Garden Center, Montgomery, Ill.
- Wannemaker’s, Downers Grove, Ill.
- Sid’s Greenhouses, Palos Hills, Ill.
- Alsip Home & Garden Show-place, Frankfort, Ill.
- Millager’s Home & Garden Showplace, Racine, Wis.
- Pasquesi Home and Garden, Lake Bluff, Ill.
- Chalet Nursery, Wilmette, Ill.
- Gethsemane Garden Center, Chicago.
- City Escape Garden & Design, Chicago.
- Garfield Park Conservatory, Chicago.
We had two busloads of excited attendees, the weather was great, the food (as Chicago is well known for) was phenomenal and attendees really could not stop raving about the trip. Each location gave attendees a chance to see what each garden center had to offer for the holiday season.
The comment we kept hearing over and over again at the garden centers was, “Do we have to go? I’m not ready yet.” Watching these garden center owners, managers and employees from all over the country walk through these stores was like watching kids visit different candy stores. Each stop was so unique that attendees didn’t know how to react.
Niche Differentiation
The one thing about garden centers in Chicago is there are a lot of them. So in order to stay in business in this area, you need to have a special niche, and these garden centers have done a great job finding their own niches.
On top of the everyday garden center products, some of the locations had huge pet departments while others had even bigger indoor furniture departments. Some of the garden centers carried clothes, shoes, tons of gift items (some had way more than the average garden center) while others just expanded on some of the normal garden center products with the next step up, like one of the largest, most diverse holiday greenery departments I have ever seen.
These are just some of the examples of what these garden centers were doing. The displays were outstanding, the product selection was very diverse in each location and everyone seemed to be impressed with everything overall.
Chicago Demographics
Chicago’s suburbs have many different income levels, job availabilities, housing markets and more. There were garden centers in each of them that were pretty successful. The interesting part was seeing the product mix and price points in these different areas. For example, one item was priced at one store for $29.99, and 10 miles down the road, the same thing was priced at $54.99. The best part was both garden centers were selling them successfully.
The thing I liked the best is the way the garden centers really knew their customers. The price points and a lot of products were different at each store and so was the way each store was decorated to the interest of the customer. For instance, you could tell which stores most likely had Cubs fans as customers, because there were trees decorated in all Cubs stuff. But then we pulled up to another location, and there were only White Sox-decorated trees. That made me realize that garden centers really do want the best for their customers.
So Long, Fair Well
On the last night of the tour, we were invited to the grand opening of City Escape’s new location, a location that came about because the owner, Connie Rivera, needed a new space and asked the city of Chicago for help. She got help from Mayor Richard M. Daley and a space for very little money in a neighborhood on the south side of the city. As we were walking around the new store, in walked Daley himself on an unofficial visit to the open house. This just made the end of the tour that much more exciting for attendees to meet the man that is the driving force behind Chicago’s famous greening project.
Overall, this tour was a huge success. Attendees would not stop buzzing about everything they saw and the amount of new ideas they were able to take home. I would like to thank all of the wonderful locations we stopped at: You were great to let all 80 of us invade your stores in the middle of an open day. As always, thank you to the sponsors; without you, there would not even be a great tour to speak of.
Finally, I want to give a HUGE thanks to my fellow committee members, Sue, Dave and Bill as well as GCA’s Shanan and Clint. You were so much fun to work with. We pulled it off without a hitch, and I would work with any of you any time.
Don’t forget the GCA has a Summer Tour in Minnesota June 24-27, 2007, and this year’s Holiday Tour will be in the Boston area Nov. 13-17, 2007. Visit www.gardencentersofamerica.org for more information.
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