Garden Center at The Home Depot in 2022 Garden center, Planting flowers, Garden
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By the way, WalMart used to certify their people too. You are NOT being too hard on the garden center staff – but it’s the management who hires people who don’t know what they are doing! It’d be like me trying to farm equipment…. I don’t know the difference between a combine and a manure spreader. Failing to water the damn plants.
I don’t count on HD or Lowe’s employees to be experts, but I also have learned to not expect it in many independent stores either. Susan, you really opened the can of worms on this posting! I’ve worked at a big box store and always requested working in the garden center but the stores don’t care. They do give “training” to the employees but nothing specific about plants. If a person in the garden center received trainingl, it was probably the asst manager who is never around.
What kind of advice are Home Depot’s “Certified Nursery Consultants” giving?
I don’t buy there either unless I’m looking for generic merchandise. I live in the Central Valley of California & we are blessed with many a fabulous IGC . Whether I want something unique or just high quality I go there. HD is great for home interior & hardscape advice, but my plant $$ go to the IGCs.
Sprayers can be carried by hand, worn as a backpack, or towed behind a tractor. My criticisms are of HD’s corporate policies, especially in the marketing department that’s responsible for touting their certification, and posting bad info on the website. I’m as sympathetic toward worker bees as the next lefty, I swear.
Garden naturally
It’s not a problem with Home Depot. It’s a problem with people expecting experts in places there shouldn’t be any or people to be experts on everything. Creating DC Gardens, the nonprofit campaign to promote the public gardens of the Washington, D.C. The best thing to come out of MG training was that I met some nice people. I agree the HD jobs are low-pay and presumably dead-end, and would have no problem if HD didn’t brag about how highly trained and knowledgeable they are. “Certified consultant” and all that.
The rest of the stuff, about his dog and love of BBQ, is just insulting to shoppers looking for knowledgeable staffers to help them. If you're going to plant things like vegetables and flowers, you'll need to prepare the soil, especially if it's hard, rocky, or lacking in nutrients. Shovels, hoes, and pick mattocks help to till and break up the soil, aerating the top layer and helping to mix nutrients evenly into the soil. They're also used for scooping out spaces for seeds and young plants.
Garden tools
Or, perhaps like sticking in a few petunias somewhere for ‘instant color’ (hate, hate, hate that term!), just learning their one favorite tune by rote. According tothis announcement, their garden department staff are now getting some training and becoming “certified”. I like the BB stores like HD for very late season cheap plants. Yeah they might be ratty looking or in rough shape, but some are worth taking a flier on and seeing if you can nurse them back to health. And depending on who’s working, you also might engage in a bit of haggling and get things for even cheaper.
I loathe having to go to HD for anything. It is truly the most frustrating place in the world to shop. I’ve been kicked off Garden Club when I mentioned that bermuda grass was a warm season grass and is dormant in cold weather,contrary to their advice. I was dismayed when we started getting vege starts in Feb. Also,I am upto my ears in palms and birds-of-paradise and nary a shade tree in sight.
I hate all of the chemical fertilizers and pesticides so I’d never recommend any. I’d encourage them to inoculate with mycorrhizae or beneficial bacteria and create their own home made compost pile. That wouldn’t go over very well with the management. Well, I think it’s very telling that HD employees were busy throwing away tomato and basil seedlings last weekend, after having left them outside all night, in April, in Boston. While there was a freeze warning, no less.
I did a 90 season with HD a few years back in need of some extra cash…. I have worked in Garden Centers for 12 years, have a degree in Residential Landscape Design and Horticulture Management, and am an avid gardener myself. I can assure you – that the HD garden center employees where I worked at were LOST! We’re talking – what’s the difference between an annual and a perennial!
In the past it used to be a laugher what they were selling to their customers. Now my big complaint is no rootstock info is present. I try really hard not to react online.
Then complain that they are taking jobs away. Seriously, the States are mirror image of the great Socialist Supperior E.U. I would never expect a sales person to be able to give me adequate advice on types of plants. I would expect those sales people to be able to tell me what is on sale and when was the last time they were watered.
I’m discouraged when customers ask me for something that will kill every insect in their yards and ask me for flowers that will not attract bees. I’m dying to know more about your talk with Erica Glasener and her experience advising at Home Depot. Let us know if you are ever going to tell THAT story and I will pour myself a drink and pull up a chair. I know it must be frustrating, but every convert you get also talks to their friends, family and neighbours.
It’s the luck of the draw for customers. I’ve had very good and not so good help. I wish more people would consider the source when asking for and getting advice. It’s a store’s business to sell you stuff. If your petunias die in april, they’ll gladly sell you more in may.
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