Additional Articles for March 2004 Issue
It’s
almost spring and my thoughts
turn to…Landscaping as a business tool
Do you want your business to get noticed—even on Route 1 at 55
mph? Are you interested in increasing your signage without violating
sign ordinances? Are you looking for a way to distinguish yourself from
the competition? Do you need more usable space for staff or customers?
Do you want to provide a more pleasant environment for birds, beasts,
bugs and humans? You can accomplish any and all of these with a well
thought out and professionally installed and maintained business landscape.
You may not be used to thinking of landscaping as anything other than
a touch of niceness in an otherwise paved and dreary world. Landscape,
it’s an afterthought—an expensive afterthought. Well, I’d
like you to try thinking about landscape in a new way. It’s winter;
it can’t hurt. There’s plenty of time to forget these radical
notions, if you think you must, before spring comes and the garden centers
beckon. So, now, in the safety of below-freezing weather, sit back and
imagine some things with me. I guarantee you that if you take the time
to do some of these seemingly extravagant things that I’ll suggest
in a minute it will positively affect your business’ bottom
line!
Sign Grows by 500%
thanks to Careful Planting: Colorful cannas and grasses
draw attention to a too small sign. If you use such a landscaping tool
to increase the effectiveness of your sign, be sure that foliage does
not obscure parts of your message.
First off, you need to know that the appearance of the outside of your
business—whether it’s retail, service, non-profit, school,
or home-based—makes a contribution, either positive or negative,
to its efficacy. Think of it this way, landscaping is packaging. And
like good packaging it can get your business noticed, communicate what
your business is all about, and provide utility. Let’s look at
these functions one at a time.
So how does landscaping get your business noticed? Some of these ways
are obvious. People look longer at pretty things than ugly or undistinguished
things. Put some pretty posies in a flower box in front of your store
and people will look. Make those posies abundant, lush, colorfully orchestrated
and fragrant and people will look, sniff, maybe even walk in your door
only to ask what that unusual plant is in your planting. (This is where
your trained staff takes over and sells them something they didn’t
even think they needed!)
A simple
planting of climbing vines softens the austerity of this Belfast storefront.
This old-world exterior echoes the old-world merchandise sold inside.
Put out a planting that does all those other
good things and then changes with the seasons and you’ve created
something dynamic to interest viewers over and over. Okay, so retail
business might benefit from this new visibility, but does it help service
businesses, non-profits or schools? Yes, in several ways. Any business
is more pleasant to do business with if the surroundings are pleasant.
All other things being equal a well-landscaped business of any type will
be preferred over one that isn’t. Also, employees will prefer the
well-landscaped workplace. It’s something that works at a visceral
level and works on most people whether they admit it or not. Children
learn better in well-landscaped schools, patients heal faster. So, in
short, the better looking the environment you provide, the more customers,
clients, students, visitors and employees will appreciate it. Don’t
stint on packaging.
Landscaping can also work to get your business noticed in a high-speed
setting. If yours is a Route 1 storefront, think about this success story.
In Rockport there is a business that enjoys a location at the very busy
intersection of Routes 1 and 90. But, though more than a 100,000 cars
may travel by on a summer day, the business works hard to be seen here
because drivers are apt to be thinking of the logistics of driving. This
business, The Market Basket, a gourmet food vendor, has turned this high-speed
venue into an advertisement via its brightly colored and highly visible
landscaping. Plantings sport 8-foot high castor beans, ornamental grasses,
flowering shrubs, brightly painted Adirondack chairs (for sale, of course)
and baskets of fragrant sweet peas. Landscaping wraps around three sides
of the building to maximize its usefulness as store packaging, customer
oasis with chairs and picnic tables, and outdoor employee break room.
These plantings are just plain fun and reinforce the idea of life as
an experience, food as a good time. This is a very au courant take on
the purpose of a food store, even a gourmet store!
Further south at Stonewall Kitchens in Kennebunk, this gourmet purveyor
has gone one step farther, they advertise their garden itself with a
map and diagrams of this year’s newest plantings. Such “shop
as garden destination” positioning works, too. Many travelers plan
a stop at Stonewall to see this year’s spectacular gardens, taste
the newest jams and buy some goodies to remember it all by.
Now, I’ve explained how landscaping is packaging, but I should
be clearer about how landscaping can act like signage itself. Let’s
think of the Market Basket again. In the village of Rockport there is
a sign ordinance limiting businesses to about 50 square feet of permanent
signage, that’s a double-sided 5' by 5' sign—not much signage
to work with at high speeds. Some businesses that shall remain nameless
get around this strict regulation with temporary signage—you know,
those rigs with removable letters that often seem to be missing critical
consonants after a high wind. Temporary signage is only that. Inspired
landscaping works to get attention and convey a seasonal message but
doesn’t incite the ire of town officials.
This brings me to the last point about landscape as packaging and signage.
Don’t forget that the color of your building itself can work to
get your business noticed. While you are at the intersection of Routes
1 and 90 be sure you gaze diagonally across the intersection—or
maybe I should dare you not to! Every one who knows what I’m referring
to can see it already in their mind’s eye. Across from the tastefully
dramatic Market Basket a newly painted house screams for attention in
violent shades of yellow, orange and red. What a pity all that visibility
is wasted on a residence. Maybe it’s an art studio?
Abundant Flowers Emphasize Retail Message: Stroll by the exuberant plantings in front of this Belfast shop and find yourself drawn in for a closer look.
Landscaped
spaces don’t have to be large. Many downtowns are learning
to encourage sidewalk plantings and window boxes. These visual oases
soften a downtown’s edges, encouraging lingering. And as any retail
guru will tell you, if you get people to stay longer they will spend
more money. And, they will also have a better time. Parks, landscaped
public spaces and businesses that are encouraged to spill into the out-of-doors
all increase the vitality and livability of urban settings. Belfast,
for one, has a reputation for some striking outdoor plantings. Often
shop owners find new customers among folks who have wandered in off the
street to ask what the unusual plant is in the window box. If you are
tempted to try urban plantings, remember that abundance, adequate water
and careful plant selection are key to effective results. You might look
for plantings you admire and ask who did them. Then hire or learn from
someone who’s successful. Another hazard of urban landscaping is
vandalism. It can be a problem but is less so in areas where plantings
are the norm, vandalism is not allowed to succeed and where police take
it seriously as a property crime.
So now that I might have convinced you that landscaping is worth the
investment, I’d like to persuade you that it would only be worth
the investment if it were professionally designed, installed and maintained.
Here are my reasons for begging you to go this extra mile. Like good
graphic design, landscape design considers many important factors that
are not readily apparent to the inexperienced soul. If the terms hardiness
zone, exposure, microclimate, deadheading and pH don’t readily
fly off your tongue, get help with this stuff. A good landscape must
be abundant, functional and focused. The inexperienced person is tempted
to skimp and scatter plants around without adequate thought. I’d
venture to say that a sadly inadequate landscape is worse than none at
all. A skimpy planting just makes your business look inadequate, too.
Landscape as Afterthought: Sadly, the temporary signage in this picture is in one case too
faint to read
with ease
and in the other case, it’s
just another “open” sign. The mature trees serve only to
dwarf the building rather than to enhance its appeal.
A good landscaper will listen to what you want to accomplish, understand
the limits of your budget and steer you to wise planting choices. And
remember, you can do the landscaping a bit at a time over years as necessary.
The Market Basket has been adding to theirs with increasingly bolder
plantings. Maintenance needs to be contracted as well as installation.
Good plantings need good care. Think of all the wasted buffer plantings
that languish for attention in front of strip developments. If you are
careful to delineate exactly what you can afford to spend, your landscaper
will be able to design a planting with maintenance requirements to match.
So, you’ve got a few months to get this together before it’s
time to plant. Go out and look at some landscapes that work. Look at
some that don’t. Find out who does the good ones and emulate, emulate,
emulate.
Kristina King is a market grower of authentically raised fruits,
vegetables and heirloom plants and is the leader of Slow Food Inter-national
in
Maine. She consults on a range of seemingly unrelated issues, such as
visual merchandising, space planning, landscaping and market development.
You may reach her by email at <onemorninginmaine@yahoo.com>, or
by calling 596.0248.