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If you’re coping with the early-spring blahs by
daydreaming about new rose bushes or sketching plans for a perennial garden—rest
assured that garden centers and other retailers are gearing up for the
spring planting season. Supplying those stores are plant wholesalers such
as Zelenka Nursery, based in Grand Haven.
 The
stretch of 4,000 acres south of downtown Grand Haven where Zelenka grows
its tree, shrubs and perennials is situated in a microclimate, created
by the lake effect, that offers milder winters and summers. In fact, Michigan
is sixth in the nation for growing plants for the retail market, according
to George Atkinson, Zelenka’s director of marketing.
John Zelenka founded the nursery on his family’s farm in the 1940s.
In 1949 he sold his first ornamental plants to a retail garden center
in Detroit.
For most of its history, Zelenka Nursery has been a family operation,
with John’s son Paul and one of John’s first employees, Richard
Brolick, running the operation. The business expanded to North Carolina
in 1994 when it bought out a nursery there, and did the same in Tennessee
in 2000.
Brolick is currently the company’s president, though there have
been several changes in ownership since Paul Zelenka’s retirement
in 2000, when the company was bought out by a Chicago-based investment
group.
In September 2003, the business’s finances were on unsteady ground,
and the banks forced the company into bankruptcy for a period of two weeks.
“We hadn’t missed any loan payments,” explained Atkinson.
“The term was up on a large loan, and we had to renegotiate terms
with the banks. A short period of bankruptcy was considered necessary
as part of the renegotiation.”
In October the business was put up for auction. The Berry family, based
in Oklahoma, who owned several nurseries around the country, bought it.
“Bob Berry and Zelenka’s Rich Brolick grew up in the industry
knowing each other, since both worked in family-owned nurseries”
explained Atkinson. “So when the Berry family bought Zelenka in
2003, it was the best possible outcome.”
The transition was smooth. Now, Zelenka Nursery is part of the Berry Family
of Nurseries, and can take advantage of the wider network of production
and distribution facilities of other Berry nurseries as a result.
Today, Zelenka is thriving. In 2007 it experienced double digit sales
growth. In size, Zelenka falls somewhere between the smaller nurseries
that supply a smaller region or only one retail channel, and the very
large operations that are the primary suppliers to the chain stores. About
65 percent of Zelenka’s business is with chain stores and 35 with
independents.
“Today, large nurseries in California and Oregon can’t always
get to every region of the market quickly enough. Now that stores expect
orders to be filled within a day or two, regional nurseries around the
country can fill those orders faster and with lower transportation costs.”
Wholesale marketing and advertising is not very different from what retailers
do at their stores, said Atkinson. Zelenka advertises in trade publications,
appears at trade shows and uses direct marketing.
“We view ourselves as a retail support system and look at how we
operate to make sure that we meet our customers’ needs,” said
Atkinson. “Whether that’s keeping costs low or producing a
plant group that’s hot in the market now—we do whatever we
can to help our retailers be successful.”
Zelenka uses different marketing programs for different market segments.
Some programs are geared specifically for independent retailers; others
are aimed at national retailers that carry its branded products.
It offers its clients marketing services as well, such as prepriced plant
tags, signage, direct mail programs and advertising.
Zelenka’s website also shows retailers what its plants look like
at the time of purchase. Plants are perishable, so retailers want a sense
that the plants are healthy and “fresh” before they order.
“We update the photos of many of our plants on our website every
Friday, to show customers exactly what our stock looks like this week.
We try to pick the furthest developed plants for the photos, so that most
of our stock will look like that in the following week, which is realistically
when they’ll receive it.”
The two greatest challenges facing Zelenka and other nurseries are high
costs of transportation and uncertainty with the labor market related
to the immigration issue.
“High transportation costs have pushed us to work harder to be more
efficient, with virtually no empty space on trucks,” said Atkinson.
Zelenka has invested in sophisticated software to route delivery trucks
to maximize efficiency. It also has two full-time software programmers
who created applications to increase efficiency within the nursery.
Its proprietary software considers the shelving of the rolling racks used
by nurseries and retailers, as well as the sizes and heights of plants,
and figures out the most efficient way to route the loading crew around
the nursery and even to load those racks.
It will plan a route that specifies where each stop will be and exactly
what the loaders will do. For example, at stop #1 loaders are instructed
to load 10 of this plant, placing them on Rack #2 on Shelf #3. The software
assures the racks are loaded with maximum efficiency.
“It’s like Mapquest for locating plants!” explained
Atkinson. “Considering we have 4,000 acres of land in Ottawa County,
those internal efficiencies add up.”
The problem of labor and immigration is trickier. Zelenka’s Michigan
workforce peaks at about 800 workers, of which about 600 are seasonal
workers who travel the country following the seasonal work. All its facilities
rely on seasonal workers.
“We fully intend to comply with the laws, but you have to understand
them before you can comply with them,” Atkinson explained. “Lately,
with the immigration debates in Washington, the rules are changing or
rumored to be changing all the time.”
Many of Zelenka’s season workers return year after year. The business
provides housing for them as well.
Zelenka does not use workers who are in the U.S. on H-2A visas (the agricultural
equivalent to the H-2B visas used in the tourism industry). There are
too many uncertainties involved, such as how many workers will arrive
and when.
If workers get held up by regulations or paperwork, that could be a big
problem. Timing is crucial in an industry so dependent on seasonal change
and market demand.
Atkinson realizes the issue of seasonal workers is sensitive in a state
with high unemployment. He recalls the mid-1980s when unemployment was
almost 30 percent in the Muskegon area. Even then it was nearly impossible
to hire local workers that would stay on the job.
“It’s physically demanding, and when we hire local workers,
they usually don’t stay with it. Migrant workers know what to expect,
accept the terms of the job and show up every day.”
Despite these challenges, Zelenka Nursery plans to continue its growth,
buying more land in North Carolina and planning to do the same in Tennessee
very soon.
This article was written by Amy Buttery, Michigan Retailer staff writer.
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