Go or Stay?

This is the time of year when we decide which of the older plants should be held over one more season and which ones should go. Not to the compost heap but into the big 50% off sale we sometimes hold at the nursery at the end of the season. The hope is to find them a good home.

Trish and I go through each variety checking to see how many we have left in stock. Then we decide if we have more than we might need for fall shipping. The logic behind these large, important business decisions is convoluted to say the least.

“Well, I’ll begin, “I think we should hang to Bermuda’s Kathleen because it does great in warm climates and they’ll start ordering in October for winter planting so they shouldn’t go into the sale.”

That one gets by Trish. Most of the time she’ll agree with me but every now and then;

“We have a fair amount of Himmelsauge left and since it’s a plant more for up north and folks up there generally plant in early spring I don’t see them ordering them this fall. Plus it’s a spring bloomer and they really don’t sell well all over the country so we probably have enough for folks up north when they do order in spring”

Trish will counter with, “I seem to be shipping at least a few every week.”

That trumps all my arguments. You see I know what I like but since Trish does all the order processing and talks to the customers, I am not as up to speed on what’s actually selling in what numbers.

Oh sure, Quick Books can give me all kinds of nifty sales figures, trends and pie charts galore in a million colors, but it is never the same as talking and emailing with the customers on a daily basis and feeling what is in demand.

So luckily for the roses the last word at our nursery on if they stay or go is not in the hands of a computer. It’s in the hands of a rose lover with her ear tuned to other rose lovers – and that is as it should be.