Mike, thanks for the clarification. Can you say where you got a firm number for Knockout sales?
you also need to poll is the end purchaser, or even the nursery shopperâŠIt would be worthwhile to determine what would make them take a nice (and expensive) rose plant home.
Philip, we will be reaching out to consumers with these types of questions in mind. Of course, actually reaching those consumers is the problem. To that end we are in need of some institutional partners who would be willing to share their email list with us or to do a mailing for us to promote the survey.
Online nurseries would probably be the best type of partner for this but Iâm open to ideas. If anyone has contacts at, say, Gardenweb that would work too.
Please get in touch with me if you can help out with obtaining email addresses.
"we are in need of some institutional partners who would be willing to share their email list with us or to do a mailing for us to promote the survey.
âOnline nurseries would probably be the best type of partner for this but Iâm open to ideas. If anyone has contacts at, say, Gardenweb that would work tooâŠâ
I know nothing about polls and focus groups, but I wonder how many of the obvious sources would result in self-selecting. Would using mailing lists of rose sellers be kind of like polling folks in the church choir about church attendance? Ultimately, it seems to me, it would be nice to get info from those who ainât there.
Iâd wonder what percentage of purchases are done by true rose-enthusiasts, and how many are made by the less avid, first time, or occasional gardener.
I suppose you wouldnât have the resources to park folks at home improvement and garden centers to poll random weekend gardeners thoughâŠ
(re: GardenWeb. Maybe Iâve done something dumb, but every time I post there, my email gets out to the spam bots, and Iâm tired of changing email addresses to avoid such. I havenât used GW for years, and it has served me well.)
how many of the obvious sources would result in self-selecting.
Randomized sampling is always a big problem. In recent years it has been made worse by cell phones replacing land lines and the consequent loss of public phone directories. We are targeting mostly people in the plant industry and active gardeners but randomized sampling within those populations is still a concern.
Iâd wonder what percentage of purchases are done by true rose-enthusiasts, and how many are made by the less avid, first time, or occasional gardener.
Thatâs easy enough to answer without a survey.
Based on the axiom that the best predictor of a future purchase is a prior purchase, most rose purchases are made by people who have already bought roses. Itâs easy to see that a lot rests on how the first rose purchase turns out.
Rereading this thread I see several comments on how in the world did we get to the sorry state of thinking that we could have AARS that really worked. I think it was an over-reaction to the dogma of the early 20th century. If you read the American Rose Annual, you will find at least one or two stories of how in some miraculous way, people are actually able to grow roses in NB or KS, or perhaps down in Indian territory (OK) [ actually a state by the time the annual began]. The argument was that it was too hot, too dry, too cold, too out there to grow roses. So the Reinisch Rose Garden in Topeka was a big deal. And they featured a garden with all the AARS winners as of a couple years ago, though some had gone by the wayside along the years. In the 1930s, to get a rose that would bloom on both coasts and the midwest, even if not well and not for long (years) was a great accomplishment. When I was a kid local folks couldnât believe you could grow HTs in the hills north of Pittsburgh. Well, it wasnât easy, but it was possible. I did it.
Some time along the way, the AARS oversold itself. Now changing demographics have done it in.
Very interesting Henry, too bad they didnât do the rose thing for us already. But it suggests the scale of effort required. the sample final N= 1500 is a good target. Of course that is from amongst those who consider themselves gardeners at some level so it excludes most children, old folks in retirement places, those living in apartments, college students. Thus it represents likely voters, rather than all possible voters.
Was it Yogi Berra who said prediction is really hard, especially about the future? Probably, or perhaps Mark Twain. Anyway Iâm willing to bet that neither of them could have predicted that Impatiens walleriana would become the most widely planted bedding plant in the U.S. until downy mildew felled it this summer. There is obviously a subtle interplay between marketing effort, and eye appeal at the retail outlet that determines what catches on.
I think most gardeners like what they like largely to impress their neighbors and minimize their own effort per status increment. Hence petunias, zinnias, marigolds by the millions but only in sunny places, with hostas and impatiens in the shade. In frost-free climates maybe its different but further north you have to ask people, would they buy roses if they could get more flowers per season per area per $ input. Their answer is already yes- Knock Out,.with Stella dâOro. Then you need to nibble away at it to find whether 1/2 a summer of bloom is good enough, or 1/4. Probably not.
I came across this and asked myself is it relevant??
âYou canât just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built (or bredâŠ), theyâll want something new.â (Steve Jobs)
From Teresa: I agree with what Pierre said ⊠no need to ask what they want, just make it pretty. The typical female shopper mentality is âI see pretty, I buy it.â We are fickle and change every minute, so thereâs no point in asking what we want.
Don, per your question âwhat factors decide which types of plants do well in the retail marketplace?â If itâs loaded with blooms and pretty, then I buy it. Knock-outs sell fast since it has tons of blooms. My neighbor saw my Flower Carpet loaded with blooms early spring, and she went to the stores to find one just like mine. I never care for polyanthas until my âBlue Mistâ exploded blooms. Before this I was enchanted with pretty faces in Austin catalog. Once I get 15 Austins, and Ralph Moore âBlue Mistâ beat them, I become interested in David Zleslak âOso Happy Smoothieâ polyantha in Edmunds Roses catalog received today.
Yesterday I sniffed âRock and Rollâ Grandiflora rose at an unknown garden while walking ⊠it smells wonderful, intense wild rose. Woman fall in love by sight or smell - just make it pretty & smell good and we will buy them ⊠I donât even care to read the label, unless itâs screaming at me like BIG PRINT on Flower Carpet container. Polyanthas and minis are loaded in the spring, make it easier to sell to the mass. If it smells good like Marie Pavie or Blue Mist, more selling-power.
Ooo, Teresa, Iâm glad neither of my kid sisters are aware of your âfemales are fickle, make it pretty and smell goodâ statement. You would receive letter bombs! HUMANS, in general, are fickle.
There is an element of the market which is the âbuy pretty faceâ. It may, or may not, be gender skewed, but I know it exists. It frustrated the Hades out of me for years. I didnât matter if the bud and bloom plant was a one cane wonder, half dead and over priced, while the excellent plant had no flowers, that element always bought the one with the flower.
But, there are the more âeducated shoppersâ who take the time to learn, research and then select the best specimen of what they are shopping for. Iâd make you crazy selecting bedding annuals!
I agree with Mr. Jobs for the most part. The most successful are those who will foresee the need, long before the public realizes they HAVE it, then produce what they feel will over satisfy that need. Too often, the lead time required to make something leaves the final product obsolete because the needs have changed.
Asking what they donât like about the rose probably wonât yield many surprises.
I agree with Pierre, too! This is why I think it is more important to decide as a breeder what is important to you and stick to that. Chances are there will be many people who agree with you and these will become the people who will seek your roses⊠each to their own right. Lots of people hate âIcebergâ but every time I see a well grown one it brings a smile to my face⊠I love it. We love white here in Australia⊠we dont see enough of it! A plant agent once said to me forget trying to market a white rose in Europe. They get some much snow they get sick of seeing white LOL. For example, I seek out Louis Lens hybrids because that is what floats my boat⊠both aesthetically and philosophically⊠Pemberton, Kordes, and Mr Mooreâs roses follow closely for the same reason. If I could get Paulâs, Kimâs and Robert Rippetoeâs roses here they would be among this list too along with Tom Silverâs amazing roses. We just need determine what we want to hang our hat on and stick to it (and our principles) and someone somewhere will like them. Thank God we are all different and have different tastes
IMO, creative thinkers like Steve Jobs have the ability to know whats good for people and visualize a product that meets a need that nobody else imagined before. We are poised at the beginning of a downward popularity curve with garden roses. (the genus enjoys swings in popularity that follows an approximately 70 year cycle, and we had a peak in the 1990s. Now, we are headed towards the bottom of that curve) So now, more than ever before in my lifetime, we have an opportunity to go explore hybridizing with abandon, knowing that few (if any) of us will ever see any kind of revenue from our efforts, and instead we can decide for future generations what is good for gardeners, and create a new aesthetic that might finally tear us away from the tyrannical Hybrid Tea monovision that has ruined an industry.
In this group, we all know what the problems are that desperately need fixing in this troubled genus, and I believe several of you have what it takes to dive in and generate that new aesthetic, one that includes good health and the ability to finally set aside the better living through chemistry paradigm.
I love what Paul wrote: âtyrannical Hybrid Tea monovision that has ruined an industry.â Yup, itâs pretty depressive to see sticks of Hybrid Teas in pots at store, naked with viscious thorns like barbed wire, accented with blackspot leaves. I saw such at Menards for $10, then down to $5, and still wasnât sold.
In contrast, Ralph Mooreâs Blue Mist is a stunning beauty, nice round compact shape, tons of blooms that last over a month, and fragrant on the spot. Why is that not sold at stores?
That segment of the industry was destroyed by the disposable, grocery store, foil wrapped mini roses quite a few years ago. If you are a Poulsen, Kordes, Meilland or Greenheart, it was a boon. If you create minis as finished, identified plants as the larger roses have always been, it âdestroyedâ it. That means, if your creations are âproductsâ to generate cash flow, which is really the only legitimate reason for their creation by a âbusinessâ, they have a chance of keeping you in cash flow. If your creations are not sufficiently generic, or donât perform quickly enough as small enough plants, or if you make them because you ENJOY making and growing them, they wonât help support you.
Blue Mist hasnât ever been taken up as a forced, blooming, disposable potted plant. Therefore, you donât see it in stores. I seriously doubt, no matter how well it performs, it would succeed as anything more than a $4 - $5 blooming âgift plantâ. Itâs just the wrong type of rose.
