Consider, if you will, the following scenario: Your customer awakens to an alarm clock that goes off automatically, exactly at a time that was predetermined the previous evening.

She’s still tired when the alarm sounds (today she’s opting for Light Rock over buzz), so she hits a button on the clock that grants her nine more minutes of restful slumber. Nine minutes become 18. Then 27. When she finally arises, she decides to take a shower.

She turns the handle that regulates the water temperature to a certain spot, and instantly the stream flowing from the showerhead is Goldilocks perfect—not too hot, not too cold, just right.

After her shower, she gets dressed and turns on the television—but decides she doesn’t like the program. With a push of a button, she is transported elsewhere in the world. With another button push, she is moved again. One more “click” and she’s resituated once more, even though, literally, the only moves she has made are the ones used to put on the clothes she laid out for herself the previous evening. Twice. You see, her husband, when asked his opinion regarding the red outfit vs. the blue one, chose the former, thus rendering the latter the obviously correct answer.


WHAT’S BREWING? Also during the night before she programmed her coffee maker to finish percolating at precisely ... three, two, one ... this second, so she takes a cup out of the cupboard and fills it with her favorite imported java, which she ordered over the Internet in less than a minute and received in less than two days.

Today, after her coffee, she will use keyless entry to unlock her vehicle; then, after backing from the driveway with the assistance of a rear-view camera, she will turn on an electronic navigation system that will tell her precisely when and where to turn to arrive at ... wherever.

Before her day is done, “wherever” will include three retail venues, each of which was actually chosen several days prior, as she checked e-mail and discovered, thanks to personalized missives from the stores, that new shipments had arrived and that her size/style/tastes would be accounted for the second she walks in the door.


AND, YOU? You’re making your way up and down the trade show aisles this month, trying to “shop” for this customer, the person who gets almost everything she wants, when she wants it—and you’re just hoping that what you pick out will please her come Christmas-time, some seven months away.

And to think, you went into this business because you love plants.
 

yyoungblood@gie.net

Josh Schneider is a founding partner of Cultivaris, a hort consulting firm. E-mail Josh at josh@cultivaris.com.

The poll position

Here’s what industry folks have been telling us in recent online polls. Be sure to check
www.gardencentermagazine.com each week to cast your vote on various pertinent topics.

Lettuce entertain you
It's not uncommon for my wife to come in the door griping about something. Recently it was the price of lettuce. She complained that she had to pay $3.49 for a head of lettuce. Then she asked, “Are you growing lettuce this year?” It just so happens that I am. I grew it last year, but I don't think she noticed.

There are several types of lettuce to grow, at least 75 varieties, according to the Johnny's Selected Seed catalog. Probably the king of the head lettuce is Iceberg. It forms a head like a cabbage, and people like it because of the crunch rather than the flavor. Of course, after you put all that salad dressing on it, who really knows what lettuce actually tastes like?

I have a bit of lettuce history ... Christopher Columbus was the first to introduce lettuce to the new land. History does not specify if the lettuce was on the Nina, Pinta or Santa Maria. I sort of lean toward the Nina.

The big break in lettuce history happened in 1926 and featured none other than the great Bruce Church. Bruce bought a field of head lettuce in Salinas, Calif., and wanted to ship the crop to the East Coast. He packed ice around the plants in the train car so they would keep fresh on the trip. When the kids in Maine noticed this, they would yell, “Here come the Icebergs!” The name stuck.

Looseleaf lettuce is the easiest to grow and is quite healthy, containing almost six times more vitamin C and 10 times more vitamin A than Iceberg lettuce. Leaf lettuce grows fast and can be harvested in three to four weeks. In early April I plant the seeds; by the end of when you are ready to plant flowers, I will have already had a month of eating fresh salad.

If my math is correct, there are 600 seeds in a packet of lettuce. The packet cost about $3.49. If I cut the lettuce and package it, I should be able to make $2,094 by selling it to my wife. With this profit, I would be able to spend my winters in the Bahamas. The moral of the story: Bruce wasn't the only Church with the brains to make a little lettuce off of lettuce.

– Gary Church, a former grower, is a columnist for the New Castle (Pa.) News