Cross Fertilization

By Amanda Temple

Would you spend months in detail-heavy preparation, thousands of dollars in promotion and countless hours scrubbing, painting and gussying up for your open house if you knew that your competition was doing the exact same thing … on the exact same day.

Well, if you’re Janet Kister, you’d not only do it but you’d look around your spotless nursery and hope that your competitors in Southern California were working just as hard to get the grime out of their greenhouses and the word out about their open house.

Kister, co-owner of Sunlet Nursery Inc., in Fallbrook, Calif., was one of 22 plant nursery owners who joined forces to attract new customers and meet current ones at their operations in Southern California. Was the force a powerful one? Just ask the close to 300 plant buyers who traveled from nursery to nursery this past February, placing orders, asking growers what took them so long to host this kind of event and raving about it in follow-up surveys. Or ask the judges of Floral Management’s seventh annual Marketer of the Year contest, who selected the organizers of Southern California Plant Tour Days as this year’s winner.

- Floral Management, October 200

Amanda Temple is the managing editor of Floral Management. Email: atemple@safnow.org