GreenScape Japan

GreenScape is another interesting looking store in Japan. You might quess that I like the store name. See the prior post about Plants•Plants. I like this name too...particularly when preceded by indoor.

It’s best to view the site in full screen. I used Google translation with limited success. Among other things, the pop-up windows don’t translate. Even with these shortcomings, it is an interesting site to visit.

I found it interesting to see the diversity of their products from GreenScape to ROBO KOBO. The store has obvious appeal to a wide age range and not just gardeners.

I'm wondering if we have any stores like these in the US, perhaps in New York. I've yet to find one in my travels over the web. If you know of one please let us all know.

NOTE
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Home Depot Down Hill

For this lifelong do-it-yourselfer, Home Depot used to be a fun shopping trip, but not any more. It’s sad how my local store has gone down hill in terms of poor staff service and cluttered store environment.

This article highlights that it’s not just a local problem. I hope Frank Blake, their new CEO, can turn it around.

I also hope that other retail outlets emerge in the U.S. for the merchandising of indoor plants and accessories. Plants•Plants is a shining example of what can be created in this market.

ILVA Live!

Here’s a four-letter modern furnishings retailer not named IKEA. The ILVA website features three stores in the U.K, but was born in Denmark a long time ago.

Read about ILVA and their history. It's an interesting company.

I research sites like this to see how (and if) they are displaying indoor plants. What got my attention was their online catalog. This is as close to holding a catalog in my hands as I’ve experienced on the web. It’s fun to turn the pages with your mouse on all four corners. Cool!

Although they don't sell plants you will see some good furniture design with plants displayed. Evidently they don't sell online so you'll just have to take a trip to Europe.

Try it out. I must warn you to be patient. It will test your broadband connection and your skill at web navigation. Not a problem, of course, if you’re under 30.

Cheers and cheerio! Do come back!

Plants•Plants From Japan

Even in the 1970’s at the height of the U.S. houseplant boom, I never saw an indoor plant store like Plants•Plants.

Today, in the digital age I’ve not seen an online store like this one. The website is a fabulous piece of work. One day in the future, I hope to visit a Plants•Plants store.

Why don’t we have a store and website like this here in the U.S? I’ll leave the answer to that question for another post.

Compare what you see here with a trip to Home Depot, Lowe’s, or your local nursery. Even my local IKEA’s green room, which is a cut above the others, pales in comparison. Shopping for indoor plants is like shopping for produce in a run of the mill grocery store. There is no creative merchandising out there that I can see.

Plants•Plants is a sophisticated and complex website in a positive sense of the word. There’s a lot to look at including four videos that are a must see. The videos are slick productions that show how you can buy a kit and create a beautiful plant using four different media; expanded clay pebbles, seramis, colored sand and “magic crystals.” Ain’t no dumb looking plastic or terra cotta pots with saucers here.

Incidentally, my plan is to produce how-to-do-it videos for this blog. That has become a real-world possibility with present day video cameras, software and YouTube. I will model my efforts after these videos.

Okay, on with the show! It will help to translate using Google or Babel Fish. I’ve installed a Google Japanese to English icon on the favorites tool bar on my Firefox browser. Translation buttons make translations a lot easier. Here are prior posts on the subject of translation.

This is a link to the Plants•Plants Site Map, which provides a good way to navigate. Simply click on a link and keep returning to the site map. The translation will follow you. Notice that there is a blog.

Sadly the translation is rather rough but I believe you will get a sense of the poetic word pictures. It’s frustrating to not be able to read the text as written. Even if you can’t read any of the words, the quality of the graphics, photos and products is such that you will still enjoy your trip through the site.

Bon voyage. Itte irasshai!

Plant Rack Bargain

Click to enlarge. My local Costco stores are offering a $10 rebate on the six shelf 6’ x 4’ x 1.5’ Inter-Metro style chrome adjustable rack imported by Seville Classics, Inc from China. The net price is $62.99 until August 23. They are a bargain even without the rebate. I highly recommend them. Hopefully this is a nationwide offer.

IKEA is Indoor Plants

Here's an IKEA update from the Twin Cities near Mall of America.

Ikea's retail shtick is selling contemporary, do-it-yourself furniture and a vast selection of home accessories at discount prices. Its stores display a broad array of merchandise in more than four dozen showroom settings and a handful of model displays — from sofas to bookcases to dishes, lamps and indoor plants.

To repeat what I’ve said before, I don’t know any other retailer that merchandises indoor plants like IKEA. They market them in the context of interior furnishings and good design rather than as an adjunct to a gardening center.

Growing houseplants is a “gardening” hobby for many but that’s not where the market growth potential is. I believe there is an under exploited market for more user-friendly plants in buildings as interior design furnishings.

There are many more people who are not “green thumbers” or plant collectors than those who are. They currently don’t use plants as interior furnishings simply because they’re too much of a hassle to maintain.

Saturday Night Fever at IKEA

Did I need any more plants and pots? Of course not, until my ‘immovable’ buying resistance met the irresistible power of IKEA merchandising.

This was the lure. 50% off on all planters and plants…no sales tax. The sale started Saturday morning and it looked like a tornado had been through the “green room” by the time I got there. They obviously moved a lot of plants and planters out of that space earlier in the day.

My cart left with 22 planters, a beautiful Spathiphyllum (the only one left), two Anthuriums (the only two left) and three Lucky Bamboo spirals. I ‘saved’ about $60…yeah right. Photos to follow in the days ahead.

Bring the Outside In

Some good advice here other than this.

Wagner said that most plants tend to get over-watered, so it’s important to only water when the soil feels dry to the touch. Each plant is sold with a care tag, and there’s always the Internet, Wagner said.

Houseplant care advice on the Internet is terrible. One needs to be very knowledgeable to separate science from mythology. The houseplant forums are particularly bad.

U.S. extension program websites should be good sources, but they’re not. Many I’ve read are sophomoric in both content and writing style. My guess is that many are written by so-called master gardener volunteers or interns. I don’t know of one extension program website with 21st century houseplant advice. That’s particularly sad since they are supported by our taxes. Let us know if you know of one.

I regularly get medical advice on the internet from well-known reputable websites supported by recognized medical institutions. I have also solved computer problems with help from Microsoft MVPs (Most Valuable Professionals) on public newsgroups. Sadly there is nothing comparable to this regarding houseplants.

The best houseplant care advice I know about is right here. If you disagree, please feel free to tell us all.

DIY Grows in the UK

The British do-it-yourself (DIY) retail market, dominated by the growth of companies such as B&Q and Ikea, has expanded by 33 per cent in the past five years. I wonder how much has been spent on houseplants.

2.5m: Number of hanging baskets B&Q expects to sell this Easter This Easter weekend, B&Q expected to sell 2.5 million hanging baskets and 40 million plants, as householders begin sprucing up the garden after the winter. They also expected to unload 28,000 wooden benches, 13,000 garden parasols, 44,000 garden chairs, 20,000 barbecues and 8,000 trampolines. Industry experts say about £100m will be spent nationwide on plants, shrubs, trees and flowers over the Easter period. Environmentally-conscious gardeners may pay particular attention to drought-tolerant plants - the Environment Agency has warned that tropical and exotic plants may be a greener choice as the threat of a summer drought looms. The warning follows the third-driest winter in the south of England since records began in 1883. Steve Myatt, chairman of the Garden Centre Association, says his members are expecting an upsurge in demand for less thirsty plants. The UK is estimated to have six million green-fingered citizens and of those, 3,500 private owners in England and Wales open their gardens to the public under the National Gardens Scheme. The proceeds go to nursing, medical and gardening charities: £1.8m was raised last year.

Big Orange Boxes in the Big Apple

Opening of the Manhattan Home Depot was covered here before. Here are more details about doing big box business in the Big Apple. I'm looking forward to seeing this in person.

The lack of sunlight shrunk the garden center to indoor plants. But demand overwhelmed supply, so more basement floor space was added for more live plants. "We had no idea there were so many rooftop gardens in New York," said Feldman.

I would differ with his comment about rooftop gardens. There is likely no bigger market for plants inside buildings than New York, the city of buildings. What a greenscaping potential! Yikes!

California Grown Promotion

Somehow the California Grown marketing campaign got under my radar. Is that from not watching enough TV or spending enough time in supermarkets? Click on the TV spot (top left) for a message from some Californians including Governer Arnold.

In any case, the program is evidently at risk according to this article. It also points out that there is only one houseplant grower in the program. Mainland Nursery, Inc in Lodi, CA grows a variety of common houseplants some kitschy, some not.

Design IKEA

Icon, a British design magazine published a "21 Most Influential List" topped by IKEA. As this article suggests it will likely trigger some water cooler conversation in the design community.

I find little or no merchandising of plants for building interiors other than IKEA. They consistently feature plants in their catalog room setting photos. Their in store plant departments feature a visually stimulating array of forms and textures. The coordinated display of plants and plant containers is unequaled by any other mass merchandiser.

IKEA presents plants and accessories as interior design elements rather than gardening products. They make a clear statement that plants are home furnishings. Other merchandisers mistakenly present them in an environment that is merely an adjunct to the garden center. The word design in this context is an oxymoron.

IKEA update: This ad is a link from an IKEA email just received. Are they reading this blog? No thanks, I do not need any more plants no matter how good the offer.

IKEA update #2: IKEA announced plans for a 2.5 million sq. foot. mall in Russia. It will be the largest mall in Russia topping the 2.3 million sq. foot IKEA anchored mall opened in December last year.

These are big shopping malls measured by any standard. The largest mall in the U.S. is Mall of America at 2.5 million sq. feet topped by Canada's West Edmonton Mall at 3.8 million sq. feet. It is reputed to be the largest mall in the world. These figures are for leaseable square feet of store space. MOA is 4.2 million sq. feet and WEM 5.2 million sq. feet including amusment and other areas.

Naughty IKEA

After reading half way through this article, I was sure I’d made a mistake and was reading The Onion. Real life is often more comedic than satire.

Wal-Mart Side-by-Side

So where is the houseplant department going to be? Read on...

Happy Valentine's Day

Here are some interesting Valentine's Day facts courtesy of the U.S. Census Bureau.

One legend has it that Valentine’s Day originated to commemorate the anniversary of the death of St. Valentine, a Roman clergyman who was executed on Feb. 14, about 270 A.D., for secretly marrying couples in defiance of the emperor. According to another, the holiday began as a Roman fertility festival. Americans probably began exchanging handmade valentines in the early 1700s. In the 1840s, Esther Howland, a native of Massachusetts, began to sell the nation’s first mass-produced valentine cards.

We found an interesting paragraph in this article about Valentine's Day.

Excerpt: Most men have the flowers they buy for their wife or girlfriend delivered to the woman’s workplace, florists report. “Women like to get flowers at work,” Dickinson said. “It makes them feel special because their friends see it, and everybody makes a big deal about it.”

What we found interesting was the assumption that their wife or girlfriend was at work. Oh my, have things changed since we came of age. So who's taking care of the houseplants?

Here are all the latest Flickr photos tagged (214 at this count) with ValentinesDay. This will keep you busy for a while if you're a Valentine's day nut. We'll post more about Flickr soon.

IKEA Mega-Mania

We've made no secret of our admiration of IKEA retailing but this is riduculous.

Excerpt: What is it about IKEA that arouses such strong emotions? Yesterday, several people were hurt in the crush as thousands flocked to the midnight opening of a new IKEA store in north London. It closed after just 30 minutes because of safety fears.

P.S. It reopened of course.

Martha Quits Online Selling

Martha and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia have had more then their share of problems as we know. Today’s news is about the shut down of Marthastewart.com.

The website is the repository of a large number of houseplant articles that will disappear. The pictures are top quality, the plant care advice not quite. Martha Stewart is probably an excellent outdoor gardener but like many outdoor gardeners, her houseplant advice was off the mark.

Any publicity, however, is better than no publicity and Martha certainly has a large following. We suspect that on balance her website had a positive influence on houseplant sales. We have video tapes of a number of Martha Stewart Gardening shows featuring houseplants. These are also historical archives since the series was cancelled.

Will she have houseplants on her new TV show? Somehow, we have our doubts.

Profits Drop At 1-800-Flowers

1-800-Flowers.com today reported a 36 percent drop in profits.

Very Green Christmas Trees

We like this story about Christmas trees that are green in every sense of the word.

Update: December 25 - We note that this story received wide coverage.

It's Open!

In case you've been losing sleep over this. It's open! Cancel the meeting with Putin!

The Problem Escalates

It's not at the U.N. yet, but IKEA's problem with the Russians is evidently headed for Vladimir Putin's office. The press is claiming his Ukrainian strategy backfired, now he has to deal with the Swedes. Besides those who wait patiently in line to barge through the doors for an IKEA store opening, who knew that retailing could become such a battle zone?

IKEA International News

IKEA had a bit of a problem in Russia. Next thing you know Kofi Annan will be involved.

Best Of The Web Retailers

Internet Retailer has an interesting overview of their choices for Best of the Web 2005 retailers. These are the big kids of online retailing and none other than eBay offer much of anything related to indoor plants.

We wonder if the Internet will ever support the houseplant business in any meaningful way. Do you remember Garden.com? Here's an in-depth 1999 article from Inc.com. We had high hopes that it would succeed. The founders were three MBA's with funding. They were recognized for the website's technical attributes but unfortunately the company went under in the dot com bust circa 2000.

We live in hope that someone with creativity, brains and money will come along with a new concept and try again. Whatever the product, "offline only" is not a good business plan for the future.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

This has nothing to do with indoor plants but we were tickled to read about the opening of the new FAO Schwarz on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Hopefully all of us are still kids at heart and will enjoy the virtual trip through the store. There are some really cool photos at the end. Check out the 'baby nursery'. Here's their website.
 

IKEA Mania Redux

We're certain that a lot of houseplants rolled out of this store yesterday...and that's a good thing.

Excerpt: The line to get inside IKEA began Nov. 2 when Scott Cesen of Ahwatukee Foothills set up camp outside the store. For his efforts, Cesen received $1,500 worth of furnishings and other accessories featured on the cover of the 2005 IKEA catalog.

Garden Center Houseplants

Have garden centers given up on houseplants?

Lettuce On Your Window Sill Please

Fresh, pushy marketing? You won't get it any fresher than this. Well of course it should be sub-irrigated, or grown hydroponically!

Have you heard about the feng shui benefits of 'Lucky Lettuce'?

Between A Rock And A Hardplace

Selling to the big box chains, Wal-Mart in particular, is a damned if you do and damned if you don't situation. Whether its' toys or houseplants, the marketing challenge is the same. Once the product is commoditized, it's 'game over'.

The only alternative is creating consumer demand for distinctive and unique products. At this point in time, the houseplant industry has not been able to do this. Houseplants are all too often treated as if they were an agricultural crop.

It will come as no surprise that we suggest incorporating tools and techniques to make the product more user friendly, easier to care for. There are just so many Lucky Bamboos in the pipeline. We believe striving to create blockbuster plants without improving ease of customer care is a no-win strategy.

What's your opinion?

Grocery Online

Online grocery shopping may yet succeed in car crazy California. However, you can't buy houseplants online.

Excerpt: Except for house plants, cut flowers, greeting cards and cosmetics -- purchases that depend heavily on shoppers' personal preferences -- any of the more than 40,000 products available in a full-size Vons market can be purchased online.

The Price Of Success

It's good to read that Minnesota Public Radio is right on the job with its investigative reporting. Wouldn't other retailers (and the houseplant business) love to have this kind of negative publicity.

Let's not feel too sorry for IKEA there's also some positive news.

Quote Abe L. "You can please some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time."

Food, Furniture...and Plants

Are we unabashed IKEA fans? Yup! We think they're world-class merchandisers and we're going to have lunch there this week. We might even go back for more.

Manhattan Home Depot Update

UpDate: The October Stores magazine has a feature article about the new Manhattan Home Depot store.

Excerpt: Other categories that have been tweaked to suit Manhattanites include the cleaning aisles, appliances scaled for urban living, including washers and dryers, mini refrigerators and compact wine coolers, and plants suited for indoor or terrace/fire escape growing. There are more than 1,200 different styles of decorative finishing products, such as door and cabinet hardware, more than 1,000 fixtures and fans, and more than 400 varieties of light bulbs.

A Big Box In Brooklyn

A big deal in our hometown is the possiblility of a new IKEA in Red Hook. It's not very far from Sunset Park, our birthplace, where Finntown was long ago.

This is a rendering of the project. Red Hook will never be the same. With free weekend ferry service from Manhattan this project will likely be a significant tourist attraction. You should be able to see the Statue of Liberty and lower Manhattan from here.

Here's a wonderful 34 picture photo tour from NY Newsday. We were on a Municipal Art Society Brooklyn Waterfront bus/walking tour through this area in 1999. It was a great experience we'll not forget. Whenever you're in New York be sure to go on one of the MAS tours. They're the best.

We Just Moved Into The Neighborhood

If you're tired of political campaign commercials, check this out.

New IKEA

Tempe's newest tourist attraction has crowd pulling power.

Capturing The College Crowd

Fred Meyer knows how to capture the college crowd. If we in the interior plant business could do as well, the business would be moving forward instead of sliding backwards.

Excerpt: Sarah Coch and her friend, Sarah Cobelle, both sophomores, had a shopping cart full of items, including a giant house plant.

"I feel like I'm on ‘Supermarket Sweep,'" joked Coch.

"This is the kind of thing returning students like to do," said Cobelle, who shopped at the event her freshman year.

We’re unfamiliar with Fred Meyer so we visited their website. We could nitpick the advice but we were pleasantly surprised to find some houseplant information. Read Why Houseplants. It's well written, concise and to the point unlike many overly wordy "broccoli marketing" sites we visit.

The Fred Meyer information is far better than what we find on most inside plant websites, including big box retailers and taxpayer funded Master Gardener sites.

That’s another story to be continued in the coming days.

Wal-Mart Fights Back In California

Can things get any more contentious, or nastier, in our society? Wal-Mart issues now fit right in with the tone of the presidential campaign.

IKEA Is A Moms Company

IKEA has been named in Working Mother magazine's 19th annual list of the "100 Best Companies for Working Mothers."

Nearly 50% of IKEA's top earners are women.

On Coworker Appreciation Day, IKEA employees receive a store discount of up to 40%, based on their location's performance. The perk extends to their family members, too.

We'd like to remind them to spend some time (and money) to get their discount in the houseplants department.

Any Houseplants From Wal-Mart Lately?

Half of all U.S. primary household shoppers visit a Wal-Mart store on a monthly basis, reports Retail Forward in a new report.

IKEA Coming to Austin?

It looks like our favorite big box houseplants, planters, home furnishings retailer is coming to Austin, Texas. Lucky Austin.

If you don’t have an IKEA store yet, their website is an online shopping treat. We received the new 2005 catalog recently and were impressed with the number of houseplants included in the product display photos. We vote IKEA the most houseplant friendly big box retailer of the year although you do have to go to a store to buy them.

Here’s their website index including a link list of information about all 24 of their US stores. The 2004 paper catalog is now out of stock. However, their entire catalog is online.

Pottery Barn Disappointing

We think the Pottery Barn is a quality retail chain. We read this article about the update of their SoHo, New York store and decided to tour their website.

What a disappointment. We found nothing that would promote or encourage the use of houseplants. Nor did we find anything that stimulated our imagination in that regard. It changed our image of the Pottery Barn. Did we miss something?

A New York Opinion

Not everyone in New York was captivated by the opening of Home Depot's new store. Charlie Suisman, publisher of the Manhattan User's Guide (MUG) is never bashful about voicing his opinion. He did and we find that refreshing.

We may not always agree with MUG, but we read his blog regularly. If you're a New Yorker by birth, residency or just at heart check it out. The content is interesting and Charlie knows how to write.

Does This Look Like Your Local Home Depot?

The first Home Depot in Manhattan opened yesterday complete with doormen and concierge. It's located in the landmarked 1890 Hasbro Building on West 23rd Street between 5th and 6th Avenues in Chelsea. This was the NY Times preview.

We wonder if they're offering an Ozone NY "Get A Plant" discount. This store will no doubt have further impact on the already declining Chelsea flower district.

Wal-Mart Public Relations

Big box merchandisers, led by Wal-Mart, dramatically changed the distribution of indoor plants as they did for so many other consumer products. The public has demonstrated somewhat of a love-hate attitude towards Wal-Mart of late. We found this NY Times article most interesting.

The Nation’s Retail Power Players 2004

Stores magazine has the Triversity, Inc. sponsored list of the top 100 retailers. The article has some interesting commentary.

Since Wal-Mart sells almost everything, everyone competes with The World’s Largest Retailer. Those merchants who have figured out who they are and conveyed that discovery to the consumer have found a place in the Middle World, below Wal-Mart, but above the chains struggling with their identities and market share.

Home Depot and Lowe’s in the home improvement arena; Kroger, Safeway and Albertsons in groceries; Walgreens in drugs and sundries, and Sears, Target and Costco in mass marketing distinguish themselves as household names. Not surprisingly, they also rest at the top of STORES Magazine’s 2004 edition of the Top 100 Retailers.

Wal-Mart was once revered as the closest thing to perfection that could be found in retailing. Ruthless efficiency in support systems, particularly in the supply chain, was coupled with innovative aggressiveness in employing and upgrading technology throughout the organization. Wal-Mart re-invented, or at least redefined, the vendor/retailer relationship, with unprecedented information sharing and shifting of responsibility for getting merchandise to store shelves and keeping those shelves filled.

IKEA Mania

We would vote IKEA the most pleasant place to shop for indoor plants in our city. They have an interesting assortment of planters integrated with the plants on display. Their presentation is excellent and the plant quality is generally good. We've seen a so-called "self-watering" planter on display just once.

Article Quote: What differentiates Ikea from most retailers is how it showcases and sells its vast array of ready-to-assemble furniture and home accessories. For example, the store devotes an entire floor to 57 model rooms and five complete homes to show off merchandise such as sofas, bookcases, beds, dishes, desks, floor lamps and indoor plants.