Round 2

Ding...ding... Lets get ready to seeeeelllllll some plants. Well lets hope we can sell some plants. It is bright and early, freezing outside and I am about ready to head to the airport and head to Mobile, AL for the Gulf State Horticulture Expo. This is usually our best show of the year so I am crossing my fingers that things go well. It is hard to keep positive though when the darn news keeping talking doom and gloom. This morning they are saying the post office is about to cut a day of delivery....ahhhhh Starbucks cutting 7000 jobs an companies using bail money to give bonuses. ok Breath...Think positive! Ok that does it peanut butter contamination!!!! This is the food I live on, always a jar on my desk. Time for some yoga to relax or maybe a apple martini! I will keep everyone posted on the show with my on the go updates.

Liner Grower, over and out.

March Ad finally finished!

Sometimes ad ideas just come to me but other times they don't or it takes a really long time. I think I work best under pressure, like start the ad the day it is due, excellent! For the March 2009 American Nurseryman I started a different look, moving somewhat away from Asian and to a more edgy young look. I hope to continue this trend and use our employees as models. For March we have featured Adriana Garza, our amazing Greenhouse Supervisor. She is taking a leave of absence for a few month and boy will we miss her! Because of this leave I have been extra motivated to learn Spanish, see previous post.

Also new for our marketing I am featuring the fact that we produce all liners here in the U.S. and if I need to source material such as stage 3 I am getting these from American companies such as Rancho Tissue Technologies. One program we just started is the use of Mycorrhizae fungus, this will be featured in marketing as well as I see it to be a great benefit for growers and the end consumers. For the edgy I just did a desaturation of the photo of Adriana, went a little darker and kept some red in it. The font is Authentic Ink along with Handwriting Dakota, my 2 new favorites! Just another one of my jobs here at MGN liner division.

Spanish!!

Ok, I am tired of not being able to communicate with some of my employees with confidence. Rosetta Stone has been ordered!!! I will keep posting to the blog of my progress, perhaps in Espanol.

Chilly!

That Texas weather,cold, hot, cold, hot! Got to the office this morning and it was a chilly 30 degrees. yeah I know I know! But April it is -30 here! Well 30 is cold for us Texans. I am glad they got our greenhouse curtains up or I would have some angry plants. Here is a picture of some of our newest Nandina, Nandina 'MURASAKI' with a little morning frost. Southernly winds coming in, expected to get to 68F, that's more like it!

3 YEARS!!!!

Well I think it has been 3 years, maybe more it could be 4. Three years for what you ask? For this Clivia to bloom from seed! Now I know why they cost so much, it is pretty though. Anyway enjoy 3 years of hard work, HA! Beautiful day here in Texas, about 65 to 70 degrees and sunny. The only complaint is the wind that ripped a greenhouse roof off, oh well can't be perfect.

Back to the Office

I am starting to pack everything for tomorrow morning and it has given me some time to reflect on last week. The MANTS show was the worst Holly or I have ever been to. Really it was the first show we can remember in a long time that we have not taken enough orders to pay for our trip. The traffic was ok but it seemed mostly landscapers were walking, which is not the customer base of a liner producer! Also people just did not seem happy, I know the economy looks gloomy but we can still smile a little right? It just seemed most people were in no mood for anything, even for winning an Ipod. We had alot of people who did not want to sign up to win because they already had one, hmmmm? Well at least our Ipod winners were very happy, we even got a gift from Heather who won the second Ipod of the show, Thanks for staying cheery!!! This really helped me through the day. Well this show failure only make me want to work harder at our next show in Mobile. Look for a better display and still smiling faces, we will not give up! Also I find this is a great time to look for new opportunities so look for us to start revamping our product offerings to meet our customers needs.

Liner Grower out.....going to pack lunch and many snacks, if you know me then you know this is true! I need lots of energy for all of the things I will be doing this week.

Packing for MANTS!

Well it is that time of year again, tradeshow season! I think I almost have everything I need, which is practically most of everything I own, j/k! It sure feels like it though but it is hard to pack light when you are going to a place where the high is in the 30's. I am from Texas! Not that it is warm here now. Sunday it was 70 degrees at 10:00 am at 10:01 a dark cloud blew past me right before I was going on a bike ride. 10:02 it was 52 degrees! Texas weather!

Anyway I am anxious well more nervous about what we will find out at MANTS, hopefully not more bad news. On our side of business things are slow, real slow as growers are being extra cautious to what they order this year. Please comment on this to let me know how things are in other parts of the world!

I will post to the blog as often as I can during the show, keeping you all posted on how things look, attitudes feel. Normally this is a very busy tradeshow, isles stuffed, so if they are not...we are in trouble.

Liner Grower heading for bed now, flight leaves at 7:20 AM! Hopefully with me on board, HA!