How do your clients' gardens grow?
1 Jul, 2008 By: Jamie Gooch LivescapesAre you curious as to what your green thumb clients and potential clients are growing? What gardeners in your USDA growing zone are planting? What pest, weed and disease problems are they having? What do they think about the latest cultivars on the market? You could interview them, send surveys and make calls ... or you could check out myfolia.com.
 The Web offers new ways to network and interact with your colleagues. |
Reach Out
MyFolia is a social network — like Facebook or MySpace — designed for gardeners. It won't replace good market research, but it's certainly an interesting piece of the puzzle. MyFolia users can create a profile on the site, add gardens and keep a journal of their gardening progress. It can be used to track plantings and tasks, and keep a wish list of plants users would like to grow but haven't yet.
All of this could be done offline, so what's the big deal? MyFolia allows users to share all or part of their information with one another. They can post questions to the community, create their own interest groups and upload photos of their plants. The culmination of this information forms a centralized gardening database that continues to grow. The site can group users by the USDA Growing Zone they're in, the type of garden they grow or the plants they are growing. This makes it easy to see what is popular among gardeners in various growing zones.
Anyone can join, so you could have instant access to MyFolia members. Ask them questions that will help you market and install plants, start a group of your own or become a recognized expert on the site by answering other members' questions. Though still in public beta testing mode, the site presents a number of opportunities for landscapers.
While you're online, check out Blotanical (www.blotanical.com) and You Grow Girl (www.yougrowgirl.com), which, along with MyFolia, are award-winning interactive garden sites. Blotanical is a directory of gardening blogs and You Grow Girl is an online community targeted toward "a new style of gardener" with a contemporary approach.
The Internet has proven to be a great resource of information for years, of course. But as community-based "Web 2.0" technologies filter into the green industry, the Web becomes another avenue to interact with clients, potential clients and partners.
Regards,
Jamie Gooch
Managing Editor
jgooch@questex.com
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