Convenience and color mark L&G - lawn and garden products, discount store sales

Convenience & Color Mark L&G Consumers Favor Flowering Plants, Easy-to-Use Products as Rainfall Reverses 1988's Sales Drought

Convenience and color are cropping up throughout the lawn and garden market.

Ready-to-use fertilizers, weed killers and pesticides are gaining favor with consumers over concentrates that require mixing with water, said Walt Ehret, lawn and garden buyer for The Andersons, Maumee, Ohio.

"We're shipping and selling a lot of water [in ready-to-use formulations]," Ehret said. "It just blows my mind." The chain is stocking more convenience-oriented products in its main chemical line, Ortho.

Because of scares about pesticide poisoning, consumers are more aware of non-toxic chemicals, he said. The Andersons carries non-toxic and organic products as well as conventional chemicals, Ehret said, but has seen no big gains in non-toxic sales.

The premiums that non-toxic chemicals carry are no handicap, Ehret said. Gardeners buy chemicals only when they encounter a problem, he explained, and then price is secondary to assurances that the chemical will do the job.

But with non-toxics, "you have to explain to people what they are," he said.

In national sales of natural chemicals, Safer has "taken the market by storm" over the past 18 months, said Ian Baldwin, owner of Nursery Business Consultants, Elk Grove, Calif. The Ringer line of natural lawn restoration products also is doing fairly well, Baldwin said.

Ringer recently acquired the Attack line of natural pesticides. But Safer still is the dominant player, he said.

Flowering Shrubs Add Color

As for color, "people are going more toward flowering shrubs and away from needle evergreens," Ehret said.

Sales of Japanese yews have slipped over the past couple of years, for example, while sales of Blue Hollys, ornamental, shrub varieties of red-berry holly, have grown strongly, he said.

As in 1988, the weather has affected lawn and garden sales this year, Ehret said.

"Last year, we couldn't stock enough garden hose" because of the drought. But with all the rain this year, "you can hardly give it away."

Conversely, chemical sales fell way off last year but gained this year because rains brought on more insects, Ehret said.

In addition, sales of cutting tools, mowers and trimmers, have increased in 1989 because of the heavy rains.

For the past 20 years, The Andersons has been heavily into perennials, stocking some 125 varieties, Ehret said. Accordingly, his chain hasn't experienced the huge sales gains in perennials over annuals, as have other chains, he said.

Lawn and garden consultants praise perennials, along with flowering shrubs, for offering "more bang for the buck" than do annuals.

Among annuals, vinca, akin to impatiens but able to withstand sun, has joined wax begonias, impatiens, marigolds and petunias as The Andersons' top five selling annuals, Ehret said.

The trends that The Andersons is experiencing are typical of lawn and garden sales around the country, L&G authorities said.

Indicative of the toll the drought took last year, L&G retail sales fell 11 percent to $15.52 billion in 1988 from $17.49 billion in 1987, estimated the National Gardening Association in its 1988 survey.

The NGA blamed the sales slump on the fourth-worst drought in recorded history and the summer temperatures that soared to the hottest readings in 50 years.

Despite the sales decline, about 19 million households shopped for L&G products at discount stores, the survey concluded, up from 15 million in 1987. That still falls below the level of 22 million families in 1986.

Because discounters lack sales floor help, cross-merchandising is becoming more important than ever for them, said Bruce Butterfield, director of research for the NGA.

Green goods and bedding plants pull shoppers into stores and cross-merchandising of hard lines and green goods leads to add-on sales, Butterfield said. He singled out K mart for starting to do more cross-merchandising.

Also indicative of the 1988 drought, shipments of walk-behind mowers fell 5.1 percent in 1988 to 5.6 million units from 5.9 million in 1987, the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute reported in its 1989 profile of the industry.

Thanks to this year's rain, sales of walk-behind mowers, string trimmers and hedge clippers were terrific, said the seasonal merchandise manager for a major Northeast chain. Requesting anonymity, the manager said sales of fertilizers essentially are flat because lawns grew profusely without any help.

Sales of weed killers and insecticides, though, rose sharply, thanks again to the rain, he said.

A wet, late spring in 1989 dampened retailer optimism that replacement sales of shrubs and lawn products would make up for last year's drought-induced sales slump, said Baldwin of Nursery Business Consultants.

Optimism now has shifted to the fall, with hopes of compensating for sales lost to a wet spring, Baldwin said.

"Sales will come back eventually," he said.

Memories of last year's drought are spurring the sale of various water-saving products, according to Jerry Baker, author, talk show host and gardening spokesman for K mart.

Those include shredded bark mulches, sprays to curb moisture loss through leaves, tree wraps to reduce water loss through tree trunks and polymers that hold moisture in the soil, Baker said.

Moreover, the 1988 drought prompted more consumer interest in perennials, Baker said, because their deep root structures permit them to withstand dry spells better than shallow-rooted annuals. Perennials, along with flowering shrubs, offer more value for the dollar than annuals, Baker said.

In addition, drought-resistant annuals, such as portulacas (moss rose) got a boost, said Jim Bennett, publisher of Weekend Gardener magazine and host of a gardening talk show of the same name.

Wild Flowers Are Thriving

"Wild flowers do well in either drought or heavy rain," Bennett said. "They have been dealing with Mother Nature on her terms for millions of years."

Wal-Mart carries wild flower seeds from Pennington Seeds in sizes ranging from half a pound to four pounds, Bennett said. K mart stocks wild flower seeds from Ferry Morse in conventional size packets at about the same price as cultivated flower seeds, he said.

At Ames/Zayre, green goods "weren't tremendous this season," said Robert Siegel, divisional merchandise manager, seasonal. "We had virtually no spring. It went right to summer from winter. Ames, which operates outdoor garden centers in 168 stores, "did okay with green goods, coming off a flat year."

Ames did well with mowers, as well as patio sets, Siegel said. Gas grills, however, "are reaching a peak," he said. Sprinkler systems "were naturally down because of all the rain," Siegel said.

Convenience in gardening is extending beyond ready-mixed products and hose-in lawn fertilizers to battery-powered garden tools, Bennett said.

Black & Decker is introducing at the Hardware Show next week a battery-powered electric broom for blowing sidewalks and driveways clean, Bennett said. The expected price point is about $100, he said.

Other battery-powered gardening tools, which draw on the same technology that made cordless drills so popular, include hedge trimmers and string trimmers, he said.

Convenience is driving the market according to Charles Dunn, head of the Garden Center Institute, Atlanta. For example, discounters are carrying more and more ready-to-use sprays and hosein sprayers, he said.

Consumers no longer want to wait for plants to grow and blossom, he said. "Cocooners" are spending more time at home and in the yard and want to landscape what Dunn identified as four separate areas: * Public area, as seen from the street; * Children's play; * Entertainment, such as patio and decks that often include potted shrubs and trees as "green furniture;" * Relaxation, secluded nooks for getting away from it all.

Design, or the way plants are grouped for effect, is another driving force of the market, Dunn explained.

Consumers are moving up in size and are prepared to pay more for instant color, Baldwin said, just as they are willing to pay a convenience price for anything that you can "pick up and squirt."

In a size step up from plants in four-packs, consumers are buying annuals in 4-inch pots and even gallon pots, he said.

Plant Multi-Packs

In a merchandising wrinkle, K marts in Michigan are testing multi-packs of plants in 3-inch and 4-inch pots, said Baker, its gardening spokesman.

Anything with color sells, Baldwin said. Growers are forcing annuals to flower by April and last May garden centers, in the Washington-Baltimore area were getting $6 to $7 for flowering geraniums in gallon sizes.

The drive for color extends even to foliage in various shades of green, Dunn said. K mart and Wal-Mart both are carrying varieties of azaleas with variegated leaves that continue to add color long after their showy, but brief, blossoms fade, he said.

For the retailer, the switch to larger plants in four-packs from smaller plants in six-packs means less shrink, Baldwin said. The plants are stronger, and four-packs contain more soil for better survival and more color by July.

PHOTO : Pesticides at Hypermart USA, Topeka, Kan.: Heavy rains have brought about a bumper crop of

PHOTO : insects, reviving sales of pesticides after last year's drought. However, consumers are

PHOTO : becoming increasingly wary of using toxic pesticides, and are shifting their preference

PHOTO : toward natural pesticides and ready-to-use sprays this year.

PHOTO : Outdoor garden centers at Twin Valu, Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio (left): Large potted plants are

PHOTO : selling well at most discounters. Click in Cleveland (right) displays power mowers from

PHOTO : Lawn-Boy in an aisle. Heavy rains this year are boosting sales of cutting equipment like

PHOTO : mowers and trimmers.

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