Apr 7, 2016

The Fun Begins … By Tim Hodson

Last week, the Home Depot kicked off the spring season with its annual Spring Black Friday sales event.

Spring Black Friday is a week-and-a-half long event with in-store and online sales on seasonal products like plants, trees, shrubs and mulch, as well as patio, grills and smart garden devices.

Spring is the home improvement retailer’s busiest time of year and this spring there are a few trends in the lawn and garden category that Home Depot says it plans to focus on:

• Simplified gardening: In addition to the popularity of organics and edibles, simplified gardening is trending with low-maintenance flowers that produce vibrant colors, plants selected to thrive in local conditions, and “patio-ready” container gardens or raised garden beds.
• Connected garden: Gardeners are going high tech. With water conservation becoming increasingly important, smart devices are making it easier to water more efficiently without sacrificing healthy plants and lawns. Smart home technology now has a green thumb with things like wi-fi irrigation controllers for an entire yard to tiny garden sensors that can water specific plants at specific times.
• Outdoor living: Moving the indoors outside continues to be a hot trend as customers look to transform their outdoor spaces with plants and patio furniture. It’s all about personalization selecting the right flowers to go with their patio.

Spring is here and now the fun begins.

It’s Day 3

Today is Day 3 of California Spring Trials.

Team GPN started our adventure on Saturday in Gilroy and we are making our way south checking out all of the new introductions that the breeders are debuting this year.

Are you following along with Jasmina Dolce, who has been providing daily reports from the road in her Culture Connection enewsletter?

You can also check out the updates we are posting in our photo gallery on www.gpnmag.com as well as on the GPN Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages.

— Tim