News Release Distributed 01/26/12

Retail garden center owners, wholesale nursery growers and landscapers are cautiously optimistic about having a good year in 2012, according to LSU AgCenter horticulturist Allen Owings.

Louisiana nursery and landscape professionals recently returned from the multi-state Gulf States Horticultural Expo in Mobile, Ala., and buyers are stocking garden centers around the state for the spring season, Owings said.

Landscaping is also getting ready to kick off early due to warm winter weather.

Garden centers generally get busy with the first nice weekend weather in February and the spring season goes until Mother’s Day.

“These days, ‘color sells’ seems to be the constant theme among garden center owners,” Owings said. Customers want plants with color – annual bedding plants, herbaceous perennials, hanging baskets, hydrangeas, azaleas, Knock Out roses or summer-flowering trees like crape myrtles.

The new Drift roses also are getting attention according to some of the local garden center owners.

The Louisiana Super Plant program developed by the LSU AgCenter has been well received by many garden centers around the state, Owings said.

The program promotes LSU AgCenter-recommended landscape plants to home gardeners through mass media efforts. Three new Louisiana Super Plants will be promoted this spring starting in mid-March, and fall will see the announcements of three more cool-season selections.

“The demand for the Super Plants has been awesome,” said Martin Hackney, sales representative at Windmill Nursery, a wholesale grower in Folsom, La. “The program is working great.”

Gardeners are “chomping at the bit” to get to the garden centers, said Scott Ricca, owner of Clegg’s Nursery in Baton Rouge. Customers are coming in earlier than normal due to the warm January.

Citrus and deciduous fruit trees are moving very well right now, according to Ricca, who also said tomatoes are already in stock, and people are buying.

“We are getting many questions daily pertaining to weed control, lawn fertilization and plant availability,” Ricca said. “We try to educate customers to be sure they conduct the correct gardening practices at the correct time.”

Landscapers have stayed busy through winter thanks to dry weather and warmer-than-expected temperatures, Owings said. And lawn care businesses have enjoyed more steady work through winter due to lawns not going fully dormant, especially in the warmer metropolitan areas of south Louisiana.

Landscapers saw improvements in sales and interest in new installations and renovations in 2011, and they hope this continues in 2012, he said. Swimming pools, decks, gazebos, water features, outdoor kitchens and other outdoor living areas are now routine parts of many landscaping projects.

“It’s not just plants anymore,” Owings said. “Home and commercial irrigation systems installations are also up significantly the past three years.”

Overall, wholesale growers have seen reduced sales the past three years, Owings said. Some growers have experienced only small losses in revenue while others have seen 30-50 percent reductions in sales volume.

“Approximately 10 percent of the wholesale nurseries in Louisiana have gone out of business in the past three years, but those that are still around are poised for long-awaited sales gains,” Owings said.

“Growers that provide new plants, target specific markets, aggressively seek new customers and expand their sales base are doing much better than growers that depend on sales via word of mouth and traditional outlets,” he said.

New plantings at wholesale nurseries are also significantly up from recent years. The drought in Texas and in portions of Louisiana in 2011 that caused significant landscape-plant losses will mean potential sales for plant material this spring.

“Spring is just around the corner, and the nursery and landscape industry in Louisiana is anticipating a good year,” Owings said.

Rick Bogren