Hopefully, a success story....

[caliloo]

I was at my local Mart store today - had to get the tires rotated & balanced and pick up misc stuff for the kids this summer.... of COURSE I had to walk through the nursery area.

I saw some of the worst cases of HVX I have ever seen in my entire life! I asked the woman who was working there if the manager was available since I wanted to point out some sick plants. She brought him over and he and I (along with 3 garden center employees) had a little lesson on HVX and why it is so bad and what can be done to protect consumers.

After about 15 minutes of answering questions for them regarding HVX, he turned to them and said "Get them all back on the rack, the distributor is coming in an hour and I want every single one of those plants returned."

There were some eye rolls from the employees, but they started loading them back up as I wandered over to grab potting soil and some other non-plant stuff.

The manager tracked me down a few minutes later to thank me for pointing it out. He said he has about 50 hostas and thinks they are wonderful plants. When I asked him what types he has, he told me "All of them! I have the green ones, the green and white, the white and green and even the rare blue ones!"

He said his initial reaction to that plant delivery was that some did look sick, but when he called the distribtor he was told they were supposed to look like that and it was a new variety called a sport!!! Needless to say he is furious with his distributor and was going to give them an earful on Tuesday.

I wandered off into the pool toys section to pick up the last of the stuff I needed and a few minutes later the same manager came running up to me, all out of breath and VERY happy I was still there. He asked about disinfecting the displays they use, I recommended a bleach water solution and he said he would have a couple of employees scrub them down before they put any plants back on them "just in case". Good to his word, as I walked out past the nursery area to where my truck was in the automotive dept, there were 2 employees with scrub brushes and buckets of water and clorox and scrubbing the entire display rack!

Talk about feeling good about approaching them with the problem and seeing them take responsibility! I smiled all the way home and I will be sure to stop back and spot check their progress.

Alexa

[Chris_W]

Woohoo!!! That is a huge success story Congratulations to you.

Too bad all the nursery managers aren't like that, but even one at a time is a major victory.

I hope that distributor doesn't just pawn them off on another store though.... (But we don't need to talk about that).

Thanks Alexa

[tsneal]

WOW!!!! WTG!!!!!!

[PeggyC]

That is absolutely remarkable! Good for you and good for the manager. Your story gives us all hope! Peg

[wishiwere]

Because of your success in dealing with this store, I think you need to mention their name, so that others can say thank if they go there for the way they put consumers gardens before the almighty buck! Word of mouth is a good advertiser as we all know, good or bad actually.

I think it's important to share names in a situation like this. If nothing else someone might be more apt to approach a store the next time when they know about the good success you had with yours!

BTW@ Great job! Were you a nervous wreck? I'd have been!

[marriedtomud]

The Mighty Alexa nervous?

Ha!

She was in her glory. I'm sure there were
light rays emenating from her.

Good job Alexa San ... a success story is sooo worth
hearing. If you travel thru most any big box store the
amounts of HVX is appaling. Most do have the attitude
that it's not their problem to fix so like Chris said 'one
at a time' is major.

Curtis/m2m

Did you have to call on all your superwoman powers to
not grin even a little bit when he told you he even had
'those rare blue ones' ? If I were close by I'd take him
a nice Hosta baby for his good efforts.