September 2003
What hooked me on gardening By Mitch Whitten

NPR's guru on green talks garden center turn-ons and turn-offs

What do good garden centers do right?

The best garden centers are the ones with the most patient employees. I feel badly for all the people in garden centers who have to deal with beginning gardeners, who have to explain what a delphinium is and what to do with it.

One of the things I love in the nursery is display gardens. And plants used well. That tells me everything I want to know about the nursery and if I’m going to get the help I need. At a garden center with a strong display nursery, I’m expecting to deal with a level of sophistication in customer service, which I’m willing to pay for.

You got your start in journalism, not gardening. How did you find your green thumb?

What hooked me on gardening was shopping for plants. There’s nothing that feeds the habit more, no place that a fledgling gardener gets a better education than at a garden center.

I remember going into a feeding frenzy when I went into a garden center. I went shopping for my first plant in 1987. I became obsessed. My first five years in horticulture I abandoned every other interest.

Where do you side in the great debate: Should retailers market with common names or Latin?

The “dumbed-down” days are over in gardening. People have come such a long way in the past decade. The audience has become very sophisticated. It’s a mistake not to give beginning gardeners something to reach for, and to flatter customers by using both Latin and common names. It makes them feel good about themselves.

Do you shop the chains?

I don’t. I can’t stomach it. I’m happy if someone finds a flat of Irish moss for $2 and picks it up for me because I use it for my dog.

Is there a deadly sin in retailing?

Chaos. If you walk into a place and there’s so much there . . . I just get the heebie-jeebies from a poorly organized store. If I feel manipulated and if they are making it difficult getting to where I want to go because I have to wade through what they want me to see.

Do you have a pet peeve?

It might seem a little snooty, but I do not like an uninformed staff, particularly people who pretend they know something when they don’t. People who are unreasonably confident when they don’t know what they’re talking about.

Finish this sentence. We would sell more plants if . . .

People weren’t so afraid of failing. People panic over plants. I’m consistently surprised because I field a lot of questions from people who panic over plants and plants dying.

The answer may be a fool-proof line of plants. But let’s face it. Plants die. If people’s expectations with plants were like life, to allow for the inevitable for death and demise, maybe they could relax a little more with their gardens. They would garden more if they weren’t preoccupied with being perfect. They are sure there’s a right way and they don’t know what it is.

Can garden centers help?

When you don’t know about plants and how they grow, it’s intimidating even to tap a plant out of a pot. Show people what’s in the pot. They’re afraid to touch the roots. It’s a mystery. More people would garden if gardening were demystified.

It isn’t furniture. I had a landscaping business for five or six years. People expected plants to behave like furniture. They didn’t expect them to change or grow. Their expectations were unreasonable. You’re not doing people any favors when you sell them promises that no plants can keep.

Name a couple of your favorite garden centers near your home in Oregon.

Hedgerows Nursery near McMinnville and Joy Creek Nursery in Scappoose.

Do glossy garden magazines raise consumers’ expectations too high?

They are important to inspire, but the good ones offer solace and reassurance as well.

Is gardening more important to people after September 11?

At my web site [www.talkingplants.com], I asked people to write in with why gardening mattered to them now. I posted dozens and dozens and dozens of essays from gardeners around the country. . .about their gratitude for a second of beauty that transcended what was going on. That’s what grounded them in the cycle of life. As gardeners, we find assurance in the continued cycles of nature. All these people are grateful to have gardens and to have something larger than themselves.

Mitch Whitten

Mitch Whitten is a writer based in Fort Worth, Texas. His marketing company, The Whitten Word, helps businesses communicate better with their customers. he can be reached via phone at (817) 732-8825 or E-mail at [email protected].