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Pup of the Week |  | This week, we would like to introduce you to Ed. Ed could be called a small medium-sized dog, or you might think of him as a large small dog. He weighs in at 26 pounds and is an adult pug.
If you like to cuddle, Ed is the dog for you! He loves humans and wants to be as close to one as he can get.
Read more about Ed here, and remember, you can always check out the other dogs available through the Bill Foundation by taking a look around their web site.
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Thought for the Day
|  | "The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low and hitting the mark."
-Michaelangelo
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HAVE YOU EVER HAD TO CHOOSE BETWEEN YOUR DOG & YOUR GUY?
Take a minute to enjoy the words and music of the talented Ms. Christine Kane as she explains how one young lady dealt with this dilemma.
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The Pike Product Knowledge Fair
 | | Founder Pete Pike & Associates |
Last week I had the privilege of exhibiting at the Pike Product Knowledge Fair in Atlanta. This was an in-house "meet and greet" between Pike Nurseries retail personnel and their vendors. This event not only gave vendors a chance to meet all the Pike associates and brief them on our various products, but also included training sessions that will help them be able to better engage with, understand, and ultimately sell to their customers.
For those of you who may not be familiar with the Pike name, please allow me to do the honors. Pike Nurseries had very humble beginnings in Atlanta back in 1958. I was fortunate enough to get to speak to the original owner, Pete Pike, at this event to verify all the particulars. Pete's first "store" was a 100' x 100' lot, next to a service station (back in 1958 when such a thing really existed) on Hwy 41 in Cobb County. His first sign was a hand painted sheet of plywood. For water and restroom facilities, he had to depend on the kindness of the service station next door. The next business to the north of him was four miles away. He said that today that very same spot is occupied by a Hooters restaurant and of course Hwy 41 is now known as Cobb Parkway and is a major four lane with businesses stacked on top of each other.
From this modest beginning, Pete established Pike Nurseries, and
 | | Having a little fun |
grew his business into the largest privately held garden center operation in the country, with over twenty stores in Atlanta and over $115 million in annual sales. Back in their heyday, they were heavy local advertisers, using all the local media sources. If you were a Pike customer, you were automatically entered into an annual drawing for attention getting prizes like an exotic vacation, a luxury car, or a house! When you saw Mr. Pete at a trade show, he was always surrounded by an entourage of his buyers and a swarm of the local media who were the beneficiaries of much of his marketing budget. You could literally see exhibitors coming to attention as this group made its way down the aisle, like the parting of the Red Sea. Through all his success, Mr. Pete has remained just as accessible, modest, and unassuming as he was back in the early days when no one knew who he was.
The 2011 version of Pike Nurseries consists of fifteen stores plus a Design & Installation Center in Atlanta, and another retail store in Charlotte, NC. They are now owned and operated by Armstrong Nurseries out of California. Some of the original Pike employees are still involved and it was obvious to all at this event that there is a lot of affection still for Mr. Pete and that the positive culture that he created is still alive and well in the hands of the current regime. I was impressed but not surprised to meet this current crop of Pike associates who were bright, enthusiastic, inquisitive, and polite, for that is what I have come to expect from Pike. As a vendor, I can affirm that Pike Nurseries has always been a pleasure to do business with, from the order placement, to the delivery process, to getting paid in a timely fashion. It is reassuring to know that while other trends have come and gone, class is still in style at Pike Nurseries.
For more photos from this lively event click here. Please be patient as it will take a couple of minutes to load about three dozen shots. |
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QR Updates
There is an old joke about the definition of an expert that I like a lot. It goes like this, "An expert is someone speaking in a position of authority , who is more than 150 miles from home". As much as I like this line, with the onslaught of the internet and all the instant information available there, I'm afraid it no longer holds true.
In other words, you can't get away with anything these days, no matter how far you are from home.
So as I begin to tell you what is going on with our QR Code program now, let me clarify that I share this information not as an expert, but as one who did not know what a QR Code was before Thanksgiving of this past year. And already, I have been asked to write an article about it for a major northeastern green industry publication. Sounds like the "blind leading the blind" to me.
For those who do not know, QR stands for "Quick Reference" and a QR Code is an icon similar to a bar code that may be found on a marketing piece (label, sign, tag, banner, etc) that can be scanned by a smart phone and which will then lead the user to a web page that contains information about a particular product or brand. It truly is a quick reference and as such will probably replace POP (Point of Purchase) materials, save a lot of trees and make a lot of tree huggers happy. Time will tell whether it will catch on and actually be used on a daily basis or whether it will be relegated to the dust bins of the high tech era. Right now, we are betting that it is here to stay.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR YOU??
We will soon be offering our retail customers access to our QR Codes as a value added benefit of doing business with us. Since a large majority of retail customers enter a Garden Center looking for a plant to SOLVE A PARTICULAR PROBLEM in their landscape, we have decided to market our plants as Groundcover Solutions. We have divided our Solutions into four distinct groups:
Groundcover Solutions for Sunny Sites
Groundcover Solutions for Shady Sites
Groundcover Solutions for Slopes and Masses
Groundcover Solutions for Stepping Stones or Flagstone
We can supply you with colorful signage for each group, complete with QR Codes which will then reveal an entire menu of plants (complete with photos and cultural information) that would be a solution for each situation. Your choice of signage will range from a 2' x 3' two sided banner down to a 7" x 11" two sided mini billboard sign. We have not gotten our pricing info in yet, but your price will essentially be at cost. More details next week.
You can see small images of the signage to the left, or you can click on the links above to see larger versions.
To see how this actually works, first click on the Groundcover Solutions For Shady Sites link above. Then go to the Bar Code Scanner app on your smart phone and scan the QR Code on that banner. We are literally loading information at this very minute and this is the one that is nearest completion at this time. We plan to have all four QR Code pages complete in the next few days.
Please let us know if you are interested and we will be sure to contact you as soon as we have the pricing information. Just
click here to reply.
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Last Week's Winner + A New Puzzle  Last week our mystery photo was correctly identified as the Piggly Wiggly Mansion which can be found in beautiful Charleston, SC. Our winner was Lolly Bonomi of Homestead Gardens in Davidsonville, MD.
This week we have a two parter.
1. Identify this notorious intersection in Atlanta, GA.
2. What comical nickname is sometimes used to describe rush hour on I-285 in Atlanta?
First person to answer both questions correctly will receive $25 OFF his/her next order. |
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