Exploit the Irrationality of the Garden Market

Whenever I hear someone talk about the wisdom of free markets, I know that the person I’m listening to is not a gardener. The marketing of garden plants routinely exhibits both irrational exuberance and irrational resignation.

Consider this: Autumn is the number one best time of year to be planting perennials. In winter, the ground is usually frozen hard and cannot be dug. Most plants have also died back to such an extent that it can be difficult to tell whether they are healthy or not. In the summer, it’s too hot, and newly added plants struggle to soak up enough water through damaged roots. The springtime is okay for planting, but perennials don’t have much time to settle in their roots for the difficult summer ahead. In the autumn, however, the weather is cool and easy on transplanted perennials, and the plants have a long time to set in healthy roots with no pressure to perform in the heat.

In spite of the benefits of planting perennials in the autumn, nurseries promote planting in the spring and early summer. So, people rush out and buy perennials at the very time when the plants are most expensive. In the autumn, on the other hand, nurseries offer significant markdowns on perennials. At the nurseries I’ve visited over the last two weeks, perennials have been marked down 25 percent, 50 percent, or even 75 percent.

Why? Well, most perennials don’t show flowers in the autumn. Of course, it’s best to transplant perennials when they’re not flowering, because flowers for the plant expend a lot of energy, and make them relatively vulnerable. Nonetheless, most gardeners want an instant display of color. So, they don’t think of planting in the autumn, when most perennials look a little bit ragged after six months of intense growth and reproduction. Gardening centers also seldom grow their own plants any more, and don’t want to be stuck with what they regard as extra plants that make no profit at the end of the season.

If the gardening market were wise, then both nurseries and gardeners would benefit. Nurseries would work on changing the perception among American gardeners that spring is the best time to plant perennials. Demand from gardeners for perennials would be highest at the time of year when it’s easiest and most productive to plant perennials. Gardening centers would recognize the profit of planting perennials left over at the end of the year, so that they could be divided and sold for double the profit the following year.

None of this happens, because the free market does a lousy job of promoting sensible behavior. Under the free maket, most gardeners buy perennials at precisely the time of year that their new perennials are most likely to die. Many new gardeners get so turned off by these predictable results that they stop gardening altogether, further reducing the profits of nurseries and gardening centers. The springtime demand for pretty perennials is so high that garden centers acquire plants that are artificially sped up to flower before they ordinarily would where they are sold. Thus, day lillies sold in New Hampshire have often been acclimatized to grow in Georgia. It doesn’t make sense economically, but even more importantly, it doesn’t make sense for gardens and the plants that are put in them. People would be a lot happier if the springtime planting craze were not so heavily promoted.

Understand that I’m not calling for an end to the capitalist system of sellling garden perennials. A central planning system for the sale of perennials would probably result in even fewer varieties than are available now. Furthermore, for those gardeners like myself who realize that autumn is the best time to plant perennials, it’s great to have good plants available at the best price of the year just when we want to plant them. It disappoints me, however, to see that the free market has set up a system that encourages gardeners to spend a lot of money in order to achieve disappointing results.

Free market wisdom, my rhizome.