So following my baptism this Saturday (yes, 28 years late but better late than never) my father and I took a little trip over to The Farm at Green Village. For those of you that don't know, which I imagine is most, Green Village is a tiny little town outside Madison. It is tucked away in countryside that is speckled with multi-million dollar estates. First off, considering that my father owned a garden center for most of his life, he has the right to be a tough critic. That said, he/we had very few bad things to say about the garden center. You could tell it was early September as the garden center was in a bit of a wind down cycle but nonetheless still had a great variety of plants.
One thing you can appreciate about garden centers in extremely affluent areas in that they have plants that you are rarely ever going to find for sale. Huge pots of elephant ears, rosemary, papyrus and three-foot-tall begonias that aren't going to winter over outside in Zone 6. Fortunately the garden center sells to a clientelle that either has atriums to house these plants for winter or frankly don't mind spending a few hundred dollars to enjoy their plants until winter.
That being said, nothing was cheap at the garden center but I suppose there isn't any need to be - Home Depot and Wal-mart aren't losing any business here. I think the $13,000 fountain and Japanese maples that cost more than my car make their target market tastefully obvious.
One of the biggest compliments to "The Farm" was that we were asked two times within 20 minutes if we needed help. But most impressive was that each salesperson smiled, nodded and simply said, "let me know if you need any help." This to me was the thing they did better than anything else. Unfortunately, I usually find customer service either non-existant or set on making the hard sell.
My father said it simply, "I really have nothing bad to say..."
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