Founded in the mid-1970’s, Garden State Growers is an annuals and perennials grower that is evolving. Within the last three years, it has expanded beyond its base in New Jersey — hence the name Garden State — to have growing space in three different states.
Garden State’s main location is in Pittstown, New Jersey, where the business was founded roughly 40 years ago. There, it has 27 acres of growing space in addition to 158 acres of outdoor growing space. And while Garden State primarily sells to big box stores, it also serves local garden centers, supermarkets and smaller, mom-and-pop-type businesses.
The ability to serve a potpourri of customers is why the business fills large orders on tight deadlines in 2017.
Established footholds
With Walmart and The Home Depot as its main customers, Garden State Growers often has large orders to meet with specific deadlines for annuals and perennials. And its customers aren’t only near its base in Pittstown — they’re located across the East Coast.
To better meet demand, Garden State has other facilities in Pineville, New Jersey, another in King George, Virginia, and another in Quakertown, Pennsylvania. All have been opened within the last few years as the business expanded.
“In [our Walmart territory], we sell from Maryland up to Maine and into [Pennsylvania], so it helps us keep a lot of our production internal,” says production manager Michael Fischer, who cites logistics as one of Garden State’s biggest challenges. “Also, that allows us to easily to ship to these different locations when the market opens.”
As for deciding what to grow where, Fischer says it comes down to what sells and grows best in each individual market.
“Some of it was trial and error, some of it was knowing growing calla lilies in Virginia was better than growing them in New Jersey,” Fischer says.
Fischer also says Garden State’s expansion has ended the businesses’ outsourcing of growing to other greenhouses. For a time, he says, there was too much demand for the available growing space in Pittstown to keep up.
Embracing new options
As Garden State began selling to Walmart, it began partnering with Dümmen Orange. Fischer says Garden State has worked with Dümmen Orange for years on annuals and it was only natural to work with them on perennials, as Dümmen Orange expanded its perennial offerings.
“We’ve been using their breeding more and more,” he says.
Fischer says Garden State began using the Mix & Match perennial combos from Dümmen Orange — a new addition to the breeder’s offerings — because of specific orders from Home Depot. The retail giant was looking for a specific number of combos to be ready for Mother’s Day 2017.
Before committing to the order, and knowing that it could be profitable, Fischer says Garden State trialed the perennials in late 2016. He says the entire Garden State team was happy with the results of the trial and everyone was confident The Home Depot order could be filled by Mother’s Day. In the trial, Fischer says they learned that the plant material was free flowering and bloomed well at unexpected points in the year.
“Coreopsis and leucanthemum, for instance, were all blooming well into September and October,” Fischer says. “Which they shouldn’t have been at that point in the year. It’s usually too short of a day length to make any of them bloom. That made us say, ‘We can get these ready for Mother’s Day.’”
Immediately after the trial, Garden State committed to the Mix & Match combos with a plan to finish them by week 18 of this year. The order was ultimately completed, even though they decided on committing to the program later in the season.
“This was the first year for actual production,” he says, adding that Garden State grew in 14-inch pots per Home Depot’s specifications.
What Fischer likes about the Mix & Match combos is that they offer something he, and other growers, have been looking for, but have been unable to find.
“I think the biggest part is that we’ve all been trying to find a combination of something that gets planted together and blooms together,” he says. “Up until now, it’s been a challenge. When they got to the store level, the customer was quite intrigued by them and the sell-through rate was quite high.”
Photo courtesy of Garden State Growers