Happy New Year! 🥳

I’m Nathan Langley and this is Maackia, a monthly newsletter walking through a thought experiment about a “theoretical” garden centre.

This holiday season I’ve had my nose buried in a few business books. You know, something light to read to help me relax… 😅

As a result, my mind has been working through all sorts of ideas and problems. I thought it could be fun if we worked through a thought exercise together to start off the year! Here is the big question:

Who is a garden centre for?

To start our little exercise, let’s strip away all the nitty-gritty and focus on the core of creating a garden at home. We need material to actually make something. You know, plants, dirt, rocks, etc. We have enough rocks already (yay, Sudbury!), but we will likely need some soil, and more critically, plants.

So we drive to our local garden centre to find some, and lucky us, they have lots! Too many, honestly. There are just so many choices. And hostas — my god, why are there so many hostas!?! We are in serious trouble already, and the gruelling physical labour hasn’t even started yet. 😉

It’s at this point that we need to take a step back and think. Think, think, think... Let’s also assume, for our little exercise, that we have no previous gardening knowledge. Where do we begin?

I can see three options: (1) we can ask someone at the garden centre for help, (2) we can go to multiple store locations (if available) and browse what’s for sale to see what jumps out at us, or (3) we can pause our project, go home, and educate ourselves either through gardening books, YouTube, websites, social media, or simply asking for help from our gardening friends (if we have any). Each of these options has risks and assumptions associated with them.

Asking for help at the garden centre immediately puts you at a disadvantage as the person you are relying on is incentivized to make a sale. Sorry to be so cynical, but that’s why they are there! They aren’t necessarily going to figure out everything for you. Instead, they will likely do the bare minimum to make a sale and move on to the next customer. The assumption within this transaction, like shopping anywhere today, is that the person you are talking to knows something about the products they are selling (if you can find a person to ask). As you well know, the chances of finding someone knowledgable is slim because they are so rare — if they exist, they are very likely swamped with other priorities or customers asking questions.

Strike one.

Buying plants that look good in the moment can be a trap. Plants are living and have varying ranges when they look their best. Choosing only those that look spectacular when you are visiting a garden centre is how you end up with a garden that flowers all at the same time. Never mind all the other little details associated with choosing plants that may make them unsuitable to your particular location.

Strike two.

Educating yourself about plants and gardening is probably the best route of the bunch, but it takes time, has risks like the other options, and, frankly, isn’t for everyone. Finding reliable resources on the internet is horrible these days and social media is hopeless. You might have some luck with YouTube, but will likely spend more time watching videos than you want (or watching something else more entertaining!). Books are the best option, particularly if you have a well-stocked library somewhere nearby. The assumption being, of course, that you enjoy reading. Have you seen the latest statistics about reading comprehension?

Strike three.

That’s a lot of words to say that it doesn’t seem like garden centres are for me in this exercise. I don’t know what I am doing, and will likely spend money on plants that won’t do what I want them to (if they survive at all).

So who are they for?

The obvious answer is that they are for existing gardeners. They are the only group of people who have the prerequisite knowledge to navigate the pitfalls in shopping at a garden centre. Professional horticulturists likely have relationships with wholesale suppliers, and wouldn’t shop at garden centres unless they need something in a pinch.

If garden centres are for gardeners, let’s reconsider how we shop for plants from that perspective. If we change our base assumption from someone who has no gardening knowledge to someone that does, how would that change our interaction with them?

Well, first, we will probably already have a good idea of the plants we would like to use in our garden. We read gardening books for fun, have seen things we like online or in our neighbourhood, and have made a list with the proper latin names to go shopping with. Fantastic!

But we don’t know if the local garden centres have what we want. We could just hop in our car and drive to all the different places (which, admittedly, could be fun if we liked shopping and looking at all the pretty flowers). But we are focused on our project and, frankly, don’t want to waste the time. Here in Sudbury, it would take most of the day to drive between the three major garden centres and browse their stock.

So we decide to call instead. Remember what I said about people working at garden centres? It’s a hopeless exercise. I know! We can go to their websites and see if they have a catalogue or listing of what they have in stock. No? Ok, maybe we can email them our list and ask them if they have any of the plants. Still no response after three weeks??? I guess we will have to hop in our car and drive around. The growing season is short in a northern community, after all. It will be over if we keep waiting around for a response.

It’s at this point that my mind wonders if a garden centre is for gardeners either. If this was real life and not a pleasant hypothetical, I would have developed some negative feelings towards the whole endeavour before I even set foot in a store. And I haven’t even seen what is available to purchase or how much everything costs.

It’s no wonder people would rather just have a yard full of grass!

What do you think — did I miss anything in our little thought exercise? I must have missed something because this doesn’t sound fun at all! 😬

n