Plants and possibilities

Ellen BarredoEllen Barredo, horticultural manager at Bowood Farms in St. Louis, gets to spend her working days tending an urban oasis. This garden center was once an abandoned auto-repair warehouse, until it was transformed into a truly green facility.

The store—housed in an eco-friendly building—has a green roof where herbs are grown for Café Osage, the garden center’s fine dining establishment. Bowood Farms also boasts a wide selection of locally grown plants. Barredo said they often get special requests for custom-grown material. This year they decided to meet this need while driving early-season sales with a special program that brought a “Seed Rack to Life.”

“We carry Botanical Interest seeds, and we planned a niche ‘Spring Greens’ program in 4-inch pots planted from their seed line and including requests by customers,” Barredo said. “It was a lot of fun and we had plenty of sales, as it coordinated with our ‘Growing Greens’ event.”

GARDEN CENTER MAGAZINE: What plant category has received the most buzz over the past year?
ELLEN BARREDO: Edible plants. This includes fruit trees, shrubs, vines, veggie starts and seeds and the supplies needed to grow them. It also includes tropical edibles, figs, citrus and pomegranates.

A local food magazine called Sauce Magazine features many local food markets, restaurants, chefs, recipes and where the plants are found locally to grow in your own kitchen garden. This unique magazine featuring cooking with fresh foods has really promoted edible gardening in the St. Louis area.

GC: Do you think people are finding “locally grown” and “locally sourced” more appealing?
EB: There’s tremendous interest in supporting local business, and a group called “Build St. Louis” promotes buying local in the city. Bowood customers have been drawn to the fact that we grow many of our own perennials, herbs and some shrubs. We do advertise ourselves as a grower/retailer, and we have name recognition because we were originally a wholesale grower for St. Louis-area garden centers and landscapers.

We do purchase annuals that are produced by local growers. In addition to these purchases—by customer request—we added a few boutique annuals and niche veggies for early season sales.

We also produced a few indoor fall specialty items like Abutilon, German ivy, and Fuchsia ‘Autumnale.’ Many indoor plants are seldom found grown locally, and these had been requested by customers. It’s very rewarding to be able to grow a special plant for a customer.

GC: What’s the biggest challenge your business will face in 2010?
EB: At Bowood we’re currently evaluating our spaces, what products we sell in those spaces, and if product spaces should move to different areas. Those areas will need to be designed and the changes implemented for spring 2010.

One issue driving the need for some of these evaluations is the addition of outdoor seating for Café Osage. The café is very popular, and this increases our traffic to the store and throughout the store and garden center. Handling the waiting cafe customers has increased the need to focus on innovative customer service training. The waiting customers are usually in small engaged groups similar to cocktail parties and [that creates] the need for different customer service approaches. A challenge!

Bowood Farms has made a name for itself by offering locally grown plants.GC: Is there a plant or product you thought would be a big hit with customers that hasn’t resonated with them?
EB: A plant program that has been promoted locally by our sewer district—“Show Me Rain Gardens” (showmeraingardens.com)—has not been quite understood by the St. Louis public yet. There has been a good start at promoting this gardening concept, and I think it will take time to build interest.

GC: What have been your most popular events or seminars?
EB: Our “Young Farmer Series” featuring three different speakers under 30-years of age and speaking on different edibles topics.

Our first event in February, “Missouri Heirloom Seeds,” featured Jere Gettle of Baker Creek and was probably the heaviest-attended event this year. Jere gave a Power Point talk on the seeds he sells to a packed house of over 100 people on a Wednesday night! The other two events were “Squash Talk,” and “Growing Greens.”

Another popular event was “Up on the Roof.” We opened the roof to the public during this event, and it occurred on the hottest weekend of the year. Ninety-plus temperatures did not stop 84 people from making reservations and climbing a very tall ladder to reach the top. Customers were able to see the sedum roof and the herb roof, which produces herbs for Café Osage and also serves as a test garden.

GC: What will we find you doing on your days off?
EB: I usually work one day a week in my garden at home. I have a huge collection of tropical plants, which I tend in raised beds around the patio. I have several porches full of annuals and herbs which I trial and evaluate. I have a shade garden that consumes most of the backyard—less to mow, more area to trial and test! I have a small vegetable patch.

You might also find me writing my monthly article for our local garden magazine, The Gateway Gardener (gatewaygardener.com). I write each month about indoor foliage.

GC: Do you plan on changing your marketing strategy for 2010?
EB: There are no new plans, other than to improve what we are already doing. We’ll continue to work with our event coordinator, Becky Homan. Becky assists us with executing ideas that are presented and decided on as a group. Once the topics are chosen and planned, she promotes them to the local media. Becky is a talented, experienced writer and photographer. She also promotes Cafe Osage. Our challenge is to explore topics that are not repetitive and that customers will find innovative and refreshing. gc