BUZZ: April 2008

More retailers are setting aside space for bored husbands, Forbes.com reported. Stores are installing comfy seating areas and coffee bars to keep men content while their wives shop. Studies show the longer customers stay in a store, the more money they are likely to spend.

AeroGarden, the high-tech contraption that lets consumer grow plants in their kitchen sans soil, was featured in the movie “I Am Legend” starring Will Smith. Scenes in this post-apocalypse drama show the main character growing vegetables in his dilapidated New York City digs.

Severe storms in Livermore, Calif., toppled a centuries-old oak at Alden Lane Nursery in January, San Jose Mercury News reported. The ancient oak was at the store’s main entrance and served as an icon for the nursery.

Homeowners will add entire great rooms outdoors this year, according to a survey of American Society of Landscape Architects members. Outdoor kitchens and fire pits continue to be popular requests. However, more homeowners are asking for outdoor “great rooms” incorporating the living room, dining room and kitchen.

Whole Foods is the latest retailer to ditch plastic sacks, USA Today reported. The store will still offer free paper bags made from recycled paper. They will also sell reusable plastic bags for 99 cents and canvas bags for $6.99 to $35.

Sears will become the exclusive national retailer for Briggs & Stratton’s Snapper brand beginning this spring. Green Bay Packers QB Brett Favre will serve as the brand’s spokesperson, promoting three new mowers, two new lawn tractors and a new zero-turn riding mower in a national ad campaign.

A strict immigration law that went into effect in Oklahoma late last year has had an impact on nurseries and other businesses, USA Today reported. Randy Davis, president and CEO of Greenleaf Nursery, told the paper that 40 of his employees disappeared days before the law was put in place.

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April 2008