Who’s your garden coach?

Our friends over at Garden Rant have an interesting discussion going about garden coaches -- people helping novice gardeners learn the ropes. (Not folks doing the work for them.)

Susan asks why garden centers and nurseries aren’t providing this service. Here’s some of what she had to say:

Nurseries are INTIMIDATING places for beginners. Imagine if there were someone to lead them through the process of not just choosing plants but going home with them to show these poor folks where and how to plant them. Then tell them the part they're always shocked to hear -- that they have to water the damn things or they'll up and die. After which, the customer returns to the nursery for their guaranteed replacement plant, of course. (Man, that's gotta gall nurserypeople!)

So, what say you retail people? Would you consider providing coaching services? Are you already doing it?

-- Sarah

Comments

[Susan Harris]

Here's the link to the story on GArdenRant about coaching, posted July 7:
www.gardenrant.com/my_weblog/2007/07/calling-all-gar.html

[Susan Harris]

Here's the link to the story on GArdenRant about coaching, posted July 7:
www.gardenrant.com/my_weblog/2007/07/calling-all-gar.html

[Trey]

We have been offering these services for some time. We call them “consultations”. So garden coaching is really nothing new for us. What is new is calling consultations “Garden coaching”. I like it since it seems less clinical than “consultation”. Consultation sounds like something lawyers and doctors do.

Those of us that have been in this business a long time need this the most. We sit in our offices reading trade magazines and going to industry meetings where our only contact is with other nursery people and those paid to advise us. We need the advice of the gardeners whom we hope to turn into customers. They will tell us what we need to do to make the nursery visit less intimidating. Sometimes just changing a word or words used to describe a service can make all the difference.