EMBER PROFILE 



ROCKINGHAM 

 ACRES 



Entertaining the 

 Discretionary Dollar . 



THE FIRST THING YOU SEE IS COLOR 

 "Even in August, it should look like 

 May," says Bill Smith, owner, with his 

 wife jean, of Rockingham Acres, a gar- 

 den center just down the road from 

 the Robert Frost Farm in Derry The 

 four-acre site is long and narrow with 

 900 feet of frontage In August, the bed 

 fronting the stone retaining wall is 

 filled with rudbeckia and sedum, 

 budlia lines the front of the main sell- 

 ing house and planters of salvia — 

 purple and white — cluster around 

 wooden benches filled with jumbo ge- 

 raniums, impatiens, and marigolds (along 

 with plenty of planters to choose 

 from) Baskets of cascade petunias 

 hang from 2x4 frames A sign promises 

 Instant Success!!!' 



"Were competing for the consumer's 

 discretionary dollar," lean says "It could 

 be spent on a boat or gourmet cook- 

 ing or travel We're competing against 

 all these and more, so it's important 

 that we make coming here as pleasant 

 as possible " "Buying should be enter- 

 tainment," Bill adds 



Entertainment at Rockingham Acres 

 means a rearranged sales area ( "we'll 

 bring up the mums, change around the 

 statuary — we try to do something dif- 

 ferent at least once a week"), free bal- 

 loons, or a "Kiddie Funstop" — com- 

 plete with playhouse, sandbox with 

 lots of plastic buckets and tools, and 

 slide and swings — where children play 

 while their parents shop 



It means display gardens specimen 

 plantings (dwarf evergreens and weep- 

 ing forms — Norway spruce, crab apple. 



birch— seem to interest customers 

 most), unusual plant combinations — 

 ajuga. liatris, various lily hybrids, a 

 flowering plum — all in magenta and 

 burgundy tones, or unexpected ob- 

 jects — an antique plow used as a trel- 

 lis for a climbing rose Some displays 

 are humorous a single plant of poison 

 ivy with the sign "We're often told, "1 

 caught poison ivy, but I don't know 

 what it looks like ' Well here it 

 is sorry, it's not for sale" 



It means weekly seminars (adver- 

 tised in each week's ads in two local 

 papers and on their answering ma- 

 chine) by Bill and the staff beginning 

 in May and lasting into )uly Each Sat- 

 urday — from 8 until Q or ten — some- 

 times talks are back-to-back — a dozen 

 or so people would bring chairs and 

 sit outside (rain cancels) and enjoy 

 free coffee and doughnuts while learn- 

 ing about "Landscaping the Home 

 Grounds." "Gardening with Herbs," or 

 "Planting to Attract Birds " 



It means tours for pre-schoolers 

 but mostly it means water — fountains, 

 water plants, pools, some with bridges, 

 some with waterfalls 



But underneath the sound of all 

 this activity is the hum of the com- 

 puter The office (in a small house 

 where Bill and jean lived when they 

 first bought the property] is jean's do- 

 main — and the computer is central 

 Inventory is computerized; sales clerks 

 at the two computers at the checkout 

 stand know immediately what is avail- 

 able — stock sold is deleted from the 

 inventory at the end of each day All 



signage is created on their computer 

 each variety offered — 3000 or so — has 

 its own 7x3-inch sign The descrip- 

 tions are brief — five or six lines, with 

 the most important information in the 

 first three ("most people won't read 

 beyond that"), every plant is tagged 

 (tags are computer generated) when 

 the plant is sold, the part of the tag 

 giving the name and basic cultural in- 

 formation goes to the customer; the 

 rest is saved for Rockingham's records 

 jean also has a laminator and uses it 

 to make showier signs that stand up to 

 the weather, but "they just take too 

 much time " 



A monthly flier (done on the com- 

 puter) that goes to a <?.000-name mail- 

 ing list is a major aspect of advertis- 

 ing (They also advertise in local pa- 

 pers, concentrating on spring sales "A 

 three- or four-percent increase in May 

 is a lot more than the same increase 

 in August," Bill says ) 



The computer is used for landscape 

 design as well Bill started Rockingham 

 Acres in I97Q (he'd worked for other 

 people before that), doing design work 

 and landscape maintenance The retail 

 business began when people began 

 stopping in to see if they could buy 

 the material he'd stockpiled for use on 

 his jobs 



The garden center direction seemed 

 to be the one to follow and in 1985. 

 Bill and jean put up a 30x60 Nexus 

 greenhouse, custom-designed as a re- 

 tail area Two-thirds of it is clear 

 Lexan. on one-third, the front and side 

 is sheathed in clapboards; customers 



OCTOBER /NOVEMBER 



