Garden retailers: How do you rate?

Consumers are increasingly going online to rant and rave about garden retailers. Members of Dave’s Garden, an online gardening community, post reviews of mail-order companies in the Garden Watchdog forum. More than 5,000 vendor profiles are available on the site. Gardeners rate their experiences as positive, negative or neutral and often provide lengthy comments describing their transactions.

Dave’s Garden users are now dishing dirt about local garden centers. Go Gardening, a forum rating local retail outlets, launched in December 2006. The Web site has more than 4,000 reviews of retailers, public gardens and other businesses that deal directly with the public.

Garden bloggers often give detailed information on the retailers they like and loathe. The author of Gotta Garden chronicled a recent trip to Merrifield Garden Center in Merrifield, Va. The store’s display gardens got rave reviews. But the author bemoaned the fact some specialty pansies could only be purchased as part of a mixed container.

Meanwhile, Mr. Brown Thumb, a blog popular among Chicago-area residents, offers advice for budget-conscious gardeners. The author frequently lauds the deals that can be found at big boxes and casts doubt on the supposed superior quality and service of independent garden centers.

What’s the take-home message? There’s a good chance someone is talking about your store online. Do you know what they’re saying? Are the comments good, bad or just plain ugly? Why not do a quick Web search and find out?

-- Sarah

Comments

[mrbrownthumb]

Hi Sarah,

I've only casted doubt on the supposed superiority of the independent garden retailers in one post. I don't feel like just because an establishment is independent it's somehow superior. I live in a working class neighborhood in Chicago and the vast majority of the businesses in my 'hood are independent. I shop at these businesses as much as possible but sometimes it's hard to find the "superior service" we are always told is there.

Because my blog and my shopping habits seem so big box orientated I recently decided to give the independent garden centers in Chicago a chance to self-promote. I called and in one instance also e-mailed to pose a question. I asked for their recommendations for container gardening plants sold at their particular store. I explained it was for a gardening blog and that they would all get a link and store info in the post.

It's been weeks and none of the garden centers have called back. What this tells me is that these garden centers are not smart enough to accept free advertising and they don't care enough about their customer base to make plant selection easier for them.

I guess you can lead an independent garden center to a hose but you can't make it water.