Weekend Reading 12/13/24

Welcome to Garden Center magazine's Weekend Reading, a weekly round-up of consumer garden media stories meant to help IGCs focus marketing efforts, spark inspiration and start conversations with consumers.

This week: How poor in-store experiences are losing retailers billions, an explainer on carbon-positive gardening and a technical look at how exactly trees and shrubs survive below-freezing temperatures.

Poor in-store experiences are losing retailers billions: survey, Retail Brew

Customer service technology provider Forsta reviewed 50,000 customer reviews of US and UK retailers and found that 48% of negative reviews were the result of problems with in-store experience such as “mismanaged checkouts” and “unhelpful service,” with the potential losses adding up to $262 billion in revenue each year.

‘Let things go feral’: how to do carbon-positive gardening in your own back yard, The Guardian

The Guardian explores how carbon-positive farming — removing carbon from the atmosphere and putting it into the soil — can work for backyard gardens.

They may not be sentient, but the way plants survive winter is genius, Anchorage Daily News

Jeff Lowenfels, who has written a weekly gardening column for the Anchorage Daily News for more than 45 years, gets technical on how exactly trees and shrubs survive below-freezing temperatures.

Enjoy your reading, have a great weekend and we'll see you next week!