April 2016 40 Under 40

Selling Roses to the Next Generation of Gardeners By Layci Gragnani

How can we sell gardening products to Millennials? Grabbing the attention of young gardeners is a popular topic in our industry today because the subject resurfaces very often in our industry magazines. There will never be one quick and easy answer on how to grasp this young audience’s attention, but there are certainly trends and lifestyle habits that we can learn from the 20 and 30 year olds that will help us reach the next generation of gardeners.

One product category that can be a struggle for this population is roses. One way or another, everyone in the world has a connection to a rose. One may remember seeing garden roses in their grandmother’s garden as a young child or perhaps they received a bouquet of roses from a loved one. Roses are the National Flower in our great nation, yet the younger generation is often intimidated to add them to their garden. Why is that?

There is a perception among my peers that garden roses are time consuming and require a lot of work. Now more than ever, breeding companies are looking for disease resistance, low water requirements and easy maintenance in all of their genetics — all characteristics that busy, young professionals are looking for when they shop for plants. Rose breeding companies, such as Star Roses and Plants, look for those traits and their varieties are trialed extensively before they are in the consumer’s hands. Most rose varieties today may look like your grandmother’s roses, but they are bred to be successful and are perfect for the inexperienced gardener!

There are a few lifestyle habits that we can use to help make the rose category more attractive to the next generation of gardeners: Google, social media and Millennials’ emotions.

1) How often do we all use Google? Personally, I use my Google app at least 10 times a day because I’m always researching something. Whether it’s at the grocery store or at Home Depot, I am curious about the products that I’m looking at and using Google on my smartphone makes this process fast and easy. I love Google … and so does every other Millennial out there. It’s no wonder that it’s the No. 1 resource consumers have when going online to look at plant information. Retailers and plant brands should build their sites with plant care information that is easy to access and easy to understand. To be honest, if I can’t find the information within 20 to 30 seconds, I’ll leave the site and navigate elsewhere. For retailers, you don’t want that to ever happen when someone is looking up your rose brand, so it’s wise to build your website and maximize your search engine optimization.