Sunny concepts

Two years ago when a debilitating drought wounded plant sales throughout the Southeast, Bracy’s Nursery reacted swiftly to boost sales for its garden center and landscape contractor customers. In about two months, the Amite, La.-based grower created and launched Bracy’s Backyard Oasis, a program containing drought-tolerant plants, specialty tags and supporting point-of-purchase material.

“Our customers were going through a terrible time, and we wanted to find a way to help them,” said Randy Bracy, founder of the nursery.

In less time than it takes to grow most of the plants in the program, Bracy’s took a concept and presented it to the market.

“It’s been really successful, and it helped sales in the independent garden centers in the Atlanta area and throughout the Carolinas during the drought,” Bracy said.

Plants in the program include vitex ‘Shoal Creek,’ Cappuccino rudbeckia, Carolina Sapphire Arizona cypress, several varieties of agapanthus, Delta Jazz crape myrtle and Flutterby Petite Blue Heaven buddleia. The program contains 251 plants, which are gauged on survivability during drought.

“We found out about a quarter of the plants we were already growing fit into the drought-tolerant category,” he said.
Bracy and his team received lists of drought-tolerant plants from several universities.

“The universities have plants rated for different levels of drought tolerance. These are tested and proven to be drought tolerant,” he said.

For retailers and landscapers
The program’s tags and supporting POP material make it easy for the end consumer to understand the concept.
Posters explain how plants need minimal supplemental water once established. Another poster provides site-prep tips for water conservation.

“We promoted this program to our independent garden center customers, but some of our contractor customers picked up on it,” he said. It continues to be a successful program, even when drought is not a problem.

Sustainability matters
Educating the retail garden center and the end-consumer about sustainability is only part of Bracy’s M.O. The nursery also practices water recycling, drip irrigation on pots larger than 15 gallons and uses the lowest toxicity pesticides possible, as well as spraying at night when the employees are not in the field.

“It’s important to us to be good stewards of the land,” he said.

Sustainability also refers to efficient business operations, and Bracy’s has implemented some tasks that keep production and fulfillment moving.

“Our drivers came to me with the idea of an in-trailer conveyor for faster and easier unloading,” he said. “We installed it in all of our semi-trailers.”

The nursery also adopted the use of handheld computers for accurate and real-time inventory, in conjunction with new sales and inventory software. 


For more: www.bracys.com