Home Depot Nursery Consultants

Recently the Wall St Journal ran an article about Home Depot training 7000 of its garden center workers to be "nursery consultants" via an online course. Does anyone have information on that course, how I can take it etc.....?

Reply to
wayne crimi
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No wonder they're doing it. I was there 2 days ago. 80% of their plants were ready to drop dead. Meanwhile, 5 minutes away, 2 locally owned nurseries were selling plants that looked like they were ready to be photographed for a plant catalog.

Reply to
Doug Kanter

I wonder what planet they''re working on? Certainly not Earth!

Reply to
Tom Randy

I went to HD today. Same thing. Nearly everything was wilted BADLY, or just plain dead.

Reply to
Vox Humana

The Home Depot in my area doesn't have a wide selection of plants, but what they do have is usually in pretty good shape.

All the Home Depots may look alike. And they may have theoretical procedures that should be followed at every store. And they may have centralized buyers. But when you get to the garden center, each of them is just a single, stand-alone store. Some take good care of their plants. Some don't.

And that's probably why they're training their garden center personnel.

Reply to
Warren

More direct answer to your question:

I'm in the grocery wholesale business. Home Depot training nursery consultants is analogous to my training brain surgeons. If you're not 90% qualified on your own, simply from the love of plants and years' of experience, forget about the "course" you asked about. YOU are the course.

Reply to
Doug Kanter

"wayne crimi" wrote in news:pc%te.25954$ snipped-for-privacy@twister.nyc.rr.com:

I am a home depo "nursery consultant" and the online training is at the stores. In a nutshell its 4 hours of computer training on the proper way to care for plants and their needs. ITs very generalized and really has very little value as learning about plants. Its a gimmick to bring in customers. Lowes does the same thing, BTW.

Reply to
me

bullshit. I am a plant specialist at a Lowes, and we have specific waterer's, sales consultants, team leaders, zone managers and managers. My job for the last ten years as a plant specialist requires me to be knowledgable about plants of all kinds, be able to receive plant trucks, handle customers and ordering, displays and other responsibilities. While we're not required to have a master gardener's degree or nursery document, we have several on hands training video tapes and Lowes requires that EVERYONE from managers on down to basic employee's do an hour of training every week.

I have been encouraged thru the years to further my abilities regarding the nursery. You might run across a Lowes employee in the nursery that might not know a perennial from an annual, but they're not full time and are possibly the loaders.

The waterer has to watch a watering video as well as have training. But I agree that it might seem generalized, but Lowes is more involved. Just selling plants isn't good enough. We have to be able to honestly instruct customers regarding them as the inside garden center people have to have a very substantial knowledge of fertilizers, insecticides and such. We don't have the Lowes Nursery One year guarantee for nothing.

dragon

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Reply to
dragonryder

"dragonryder" wrote in news:42b9051f snipped-for-privacy@news.vic.com:

news flash:

home depot has the same guarantee, and in fact I worked for Lowes last year before. I am well aware of Lowes and their policy. Its the same thing but under a different name.

Reply to
me

BTW the class is ALL ZONE 9-10 crapola.....You cant pass the classes unless you can put all the questions in relation with Atlanta & surrounding areas......I'm in 7a..What do I care what is in Atlanta....It was a hell of a ride but I got-er-done last March 2004.....I'm none the wiser.....My plants keeling over from time to time is due to the fact that the night crew turns off the irrigation so they don't get their fairy asses wet, and the plants are too stupid to walk to the tap to get water after a 98degree day or when shipped to us dry so the trucking co can save on the weight...(Wet plants weigh more than damp plants, thus affecting the shipping) So when they get to HD or Lowes they are already stressed some and if someone there isn't savvy enough to get them watered, then yea, theres your complaint......The box stores differ from district to district....If your DM is a garden freak, then your stores follow suit....If they worked in lumber their whole career, then you see landscape timbers all over the parking lot and dying plants and poor selections....Give us a break General Public.....We can't please everyone's interest.....While HD and Lowes are getting creamed by you-all, no one is noticing that Wal-Mart is sneaking up on both of us......... More to come.....

Reply to
KCnRichmond

Yes, I have definately noticed that Wal-mart's plants this year were a lot healthier than last year.

As for my local store, I am a gardening freak, so I have taken the time to set up misting systems for most ofthe areas we keep the plants. (that is when the night crew doesn't tear out the hoses with the fork lifts.) Yesterday I think I scared my store manager when I yelled at him because he picked up a plant, not by the pot, but by the stem.

Reply to
me

The Wal-Mart garden center near me a complete mess, as is the rest of the store. It always looks like a cyclone just struck. Lowe's has consistently better plants than either HD, Wal-Mart, or K-Mart. I suspect, as you point out, that the quality of the garden department depends primarily on how interested management is in that department. I would be afraid to buy any plants from my HD if I didn't see them being unloaded. I know that anything on the sales floor has been stresses over and over due to improper care (or neglect).

Reply to
Vox Humana

I went to HD a few weeks ago, and asked about a problem with my tomatoes -- numerous holes in the leaves. The salescritter told me in no uncertain terms that it was caused by watering in sunny weather -- the drops of water cause lensing and burn the leaves. Uh-huh. I did a little research and discovered the *real* problem -- flea beetles.

I won't be asking them for advice again....

Reply to
Dennis Edward

HD, Lowe's and Wall-Mart, regardless of what people may call them, are HARDWARE stored and as such are good places to shop.

However for living plants, flowers and trees, find a nursery or REAL garden center close by where they will have a wide assortment of well cared for items to choose from.

The information and advice about plants and such from these places tend to be much more reliable also.

Remember though, even at the nurseries and garden centers chances are good you will still be dealing with people better trained to operate a cash register than they are at giving advice on planting roses.

Reply to
Hound Dog

Very true. The HD down the street reogranized the garden center and it is laid out better. They also had a better selction thisyear than lastm, but they got the selection late. That said it is very easy to find dry pots & wilted plants.

I worked in retail for years and I saw extensive training done reepeatedly. In a place like a nursery you need to know what your doing. The Same HD had all the seed rack outside in the rain. The paper envelopes of seeds were all soaked. If you understand that water is a major trigger for germination you know that is a dumb thing, but no one, including the managers at home depot could see how dumb it was.

They probably wouldn't train people beyond general good basics and principles. Hot weather, more watering, cooler weather, less.

That said I was at a large professional nursery and going through the back lots found entire lots of petunias sickly and dying. Obviously diseased. I also saw a bunhc of cabbage moths visiting the broccoli. Those types of problems I expect to be beyond any sales person except for a profesional in the industry long term. (or a hobbyist)

DiGiTAL ViNYL (no email) Zone 6b/7, Westchester Co, NY,

Reply to
DigitalVinyl

You expect a lot for a little over minimum wage and low prices, don't you?

I suppose that sales person is supposed to study every plant they sell and every bug, disease and bad human practice inflicted on each one so they are prepared to play plant doctor for the public.

DiGiTAL ViNYL (no email) Zone 6b/7, Westchester Co, NY,

Reply to
DigitalVinyl

I have received a lot of bad information at HD and Lowe's. It isn't limited to the garden department. I would rather that someone tell me that they don't know than to just make something up and/or sell me the wrong product. I have no idea what they are paid and it makes no difference to me. When they ask me if they can help and I ask a question, I expect them to give me an informed answer or to tell me they don't know. I don't think that is asking too much. You don't have to be highly trained or well paid to say "I don't know."

Reply to
Vox Humana

" You don't have to be highly trained or well paid to say "I don't know."

Actually in our culture you have to be trained to say I don't know And it's not an easy thing to teach.

Even harder is to find someone who will flat out say I screwed up instead of shifting blame.

As for Home Depot- they try to find that magic minimum level of staffing that will get the goods out the door and in many cases it means I don't go in the door unless there is no other alternative. Yet I own their shares and have profitted handsomely.

Reply to
bamboo

A lot? Saying "I don't know" if they don't know is "a lot"? Saying "I'll get someone who knows about these things" is "a lot" ? When I go into the plumbing section and ask a question about plumbing or plumbing supplies, I expect to get some kind of reasonable answer because 1) Home Depot in particular advertises that their "knowledgable sales staff" can "answer your questions", and 2) because as a general rule I expect a company and the representatives thereof to know a thing or two about the business that they are in. That means that electrical supply companies should know about electrical supplies, furniture companies should know about furniture, etc etc etc. No different for departments in something like HD.

Having said all that, there's just no way that this represented "high expectations", any more than expecting the lumber staff to know the difference between pine and cedar. And your reductio ad absurbitum of turning my comment into a supposed expectation that they have a PHD in biology doesn't do your argument or your credibility any good.

Reply to
Dennis Edward

I'm not sure that's cultural. More like genetic. :-)

Reply to
Dennis Edward

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