What would I grow?

If I had a greenhouse, what would I be growing this coming year and beyond?

When our editor asked me this question, my first knee jerk thought was “anything I could get my hands on!” Given the pressures on plant and supply availability — down to things as basic as carts — I suppose that’s how many growers feel right about now.

Constraints on materials have driven up costs of operations for most growers. There is also tension in the marketplace right now, and a bit of fear, when it comes to procuring the basic items we need to do good business — or any business at all. So perhaps we should get a little savvier about our situation and shift from the “sell anything” mentality to a “sell only my highest-margin items” mentality. If there were ever a time for such a bold strategy, I’d say 2022 is it.

Not to say that improvements in consumer retail spending (at least at the time I was writing this column in November 2021) won’t put competitive pressure on the gardening industry. When consumers start spending again in other markets, we tend to lose out as an industry. And with buyers already feeling frustrated with price increases at the grocery store and everywhere else they shop, pricing may present a clear challenge for us. Heading out of the house, back to the office and back to traveling will also take consumers away from their gardens and houseplants.

So, these two things are simultaneously true for us right now: There is still a healthy demand for plants and gardening products, and we will also be in a more heated competition for consumers’ time and money in 2022. It’s all going to come down to how well we leverage the interest in plants and gardening created over the pandemic by developing a greater perception value … to justify our larger profit margins.

Foliage first

All right, back to what I would grow if I had a greenhouse. Well, I’d say let’s first look at indoor gardening trends, since houseplants have been the gateway for so many of our new customers. Foliage, specifically specialty aroids, are still at the peak of fashion amongst plant parents right now. That said, indoor plant keepers are ready to graduate from the more common top 10 species or cultivars of foliage plants offered and expand their collections within the same genus. Having a full-blown Hoya or Alocasia collection is super on-trend right now. If you already grow a narrow selection of common snake plants, consider deepening your selection within the genus to offer rarer species or cultivars. Why only have one Dracaena sp. when you can have 70?

Retro blooms

Foliage isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, but I feel some retro blooms coming on. Retro is always cool; that is, whatever consumers consider “retro” at the time. It feels like flowering houseplants might be the next cool retro trend. While gesneriads used to be all the rage, they fell out of fashion over the last few decades. Low-light foliage plants are just easier to grow without supplemental lighting. Plus, the big sculptural leaf shapes satisfy current interior design aesthetics. But that attitude seems to be starting to evolve. With the indoor growing movement intensifying and the huge jump in interest in indoor grow lighting, plant parents are starting to get an inkling for flowers again.

Me? I’d dig into African violets, from standard to miniature. There is an entirely new generation of indoor gardeners whose eyes are opening to these blooming beauties. Begonias have developed a new budding following as well — but please teach these new plant parents they don’t have to remove the flowers (that seems to be a thing). I’m a huge micro-Sinningia enthusiast and collector myself, but many of the standard size species are tough and unique blooming houseplants. Customers are seeking truly tiny terrarium species, not just 2-inch pots of rooted cuttings of large tropical species; heads up, the plant parents are onto you and have started to figure out these really aren’t terrarium-size appropriate species. Oh, and I’m also seeing a rising interest in carnivorous plants, both for the indoor and outdoor garden. To put it simply, I’d just go back to growing whatever houseplants you were growing in the ‘70s, and you’ll likely find an eager audience willing to pay a pretty penny.

Tiny food

When it comes to the garden, anything edible would be on my radar. I would go heavy into dwarf edibles, such as micro-tomatoes, trellising peppers, bush berries and micro-basil. You can hit both the indoor and outdoor gardening customers with dwarf cultivars. There’s a serious lack of customer targeting and marketing when it comes to courting small-space, patio and balcony food gardeners. I suspect most of you who sell edibles will have no problem selling everything you have; but just as with standard tropical foliage, there is space in the market to go deeper with your category offerings and better serve niche markets.

Wildlife wins

When it comes to annuals and perennials, I’d focus on plants with benefits to wildlife, be it the bees or the birds. If you didn’t catch it, be sure to read my November Garden Center Magazine column on the rise of birding and nature-supporting plantings (bit.ly/birding-halleck). And that retro-blooming trend I mentioned in regard to houseplants? It might also be prime to hit the outdoor garden, as I’m seeing big, trained chrysanthemum and dahlia flowers creeping back into Instagram feeds. All I can say is, bring on the blooms!

Low-value, low-price plants wouldn’t be getting much bench space this year in my imaginary greenhouse. The name of the game in 2022 is going to be value. Your most effective marketing tool will be educating consumers about that value. Do your plants tug at your customers’ heartstrings and fulfill their gardening goals, in ways that negate price as a consideration? That’s the question I’ll leave you with to both ponder and answer for your customers in the new year.

Leslie (CPH) owns Halleck Horticultural, LLC, through which she provides horticultural consulting, business and marketing strategy, product development and branding, and content creation for green industry companies. lesliehalleck.com