Phil Wright: We're delighted to welcome back onto the podcast yet again Michael Perry, Mr Plant Geek. Welcome, Michael.
Michael Perry: Great to be here. Thank you so much. How's it going?
Phil Wright: It's going well. Good to see you.
Michael Perry: High five or low five?
Kate Turner: Medium five.
Michael Perry: Nice. Good to see you guys.
Kate Turner: We're so down with the kids.
Michael Perry: I love the setting as well. We're in the belly of the trade fair.
Kate Turner: It's actually the ideal place to record a podcast.
Michael Perry: I'm really excited about being back here after this.
Kate Turner: Industrial chic.
Michael Perry: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, definitely.
Kate Turner: It's better than the booth, I must admit. So, look, Michael, we've got some questions planned, but there have been a few things happening this week in horticulture and gardening. One of the big breaking-news stories is that Monty Don has resigned from Gardeners' World after, what...
Michael Perry: A long time. Over 20 years?
Kate Turner: Yeah, at least 23 years. So, the big question on everybody's lips is: who's going to replace him? What are your thoughts about where Gardeners' World should go? Is it still relevant? Are people you know still watching it? What do you think?
Michael Perry: A lot of different questions. I think it is. I think it's relevant in many ways. I think it's relevant as a gardening programme, but I think it's also relevant as a kind of like, antidote programme. You know what I mean? A lot of people, I think they watch it, not even for the gardening, but for the slowness. And you can see how the programme has developed over the years to have more of those little inserts with birdsong and things. So I think it fills two voids there. I think it is what it is, and we're always wanting it to be something different: more upbeat, more bouncy, more commercial or more of a magazine show. But to be honest, I don't think it should be that. I think it should stay this kind of slow paced, like gentle gardening thing as it is. And I think there's a market for a new show that is more. More commercial, more magazine-style, more upbeat: a whole range of different things, new projects and new ways to garden. I think we've talked about this before, but in the Netherlands and Germany, for example, they're decorating their gardens rather than gardening in them. A show that celebrates that. What's the new petunia of the week? How are we going to change the colour of our fence? Something halfway between a makeover show and a gardening show, but with real commercial awareness. Maybe this is something more ITV than BBC, telling people where to buy the plants. Imagine getting that Nigella effect: everyone's going to buy cinnamon the next day after she uses it in a Christmas cake.
Michael Perry: I'd like to get that essence into it. We need something a bit more achingly commercial. I don't think Gardeners' World, or the presenters who are possibilities for it, are the people for that commercial world because I don't feel they have that commercial awareness. That isn't a criticism: they're working in a different field, which is more about the gardening. I think there's a separate thing that could happen outside it.
Kate Turner: So almost like the one show of gardening.
Michael Perry: Oh my God, that's exactly it.
Kate Turner: So because we've got Garden Rescue, which is yeah, you make over shows, we've got a few of them. But what we haven't got is that. Yeah. Magazine.
Michael Perry: I think you've definitely hit the nail on the head.
Kate Turner: And I can think of two really good hosts for something like that. So you wouldn't, you wouldn't want to present something like Gardeners' World. That wouldn't be something you would want to do or.
Michael Perry: No, I don't think so. Because really, it's not commercial enough for me. I've learned so much about the industry. I acknowledge that a plant is also a product, and I'm there with the different new ideas. Gardeners' World is very mainstream and sits on the traditional side of gardening. I'm more of a plant promoter, if you know what I mean. In many ways, it would feel like a step back because I'm working at a European and sometimes international level, very B2B. It's a niche I've almost created for myself.
Kate Turner: Which no one else does. You're commercially aware.
Michael Perry: I really enjoy it, and Gardeners' World would feel like a step back in that sense, unless I could do it with a commercial slant. Let's show people new plants and new ways to grow. Let's take people to breeders. Let's show where plants really come from. Let's not propagate our Eryngium plants for the twelfth year, because we're not going to go to the garden centre and buy a new plant. Do you know what I mean? Let's show the real world and get people spending money in garden centres. Get people inspired in that way. Monty Don famously has been very anti-garden centre and really hasn't helped the industry. We don't all have to garden on a shoestring. Some of us might need to, and I acknowledge that, but it needs to be for everyone. There are also people with disposable income, and there are things you can buy at better prices in a garden centre. Let's encourage people to go to the garden centre and just eat cake, because that's okay too.
Kate Turner: You always look at me when you say that.
Michael Perry: Because we're also snobbish about that, about a garden centre should just be about plants.
Kate Turner: Yeah. No Christmas decorations.
Michael Perry: And lifestyle. And people go there for the experience now. And even if the plants were only 30% of that, that's okay by me, right? Yeah.
Kate Turner: Well, no.
Michael Perry: What you have for that is specialist nurseries, and they need some air as well. If garden centres did everything with plants, there'd be no air for specialist nurseries or for their knowledge to be imparted. You're very unlikely to get someone in a garden centre who can talk to you in depth about Hoyas or specialist breeding. But you would get that if you went to a specialist grower. So I think we should really uplift those independent growers at the same time as garden centres. You get something different from both.
Phil Wright: Interesting what you're saying. I think one of the things you touched on there is there is a whole demographic of people out there who want to enjoy their garden but don't want to be gardeners.
Michael Perry: We keep encouraging them. Here's when to prune. Here's how to prune.
Phil Wright: We're doing that.
Michael Perry: They don't care. The problem is our gardening heritage: we feel like we have to be good gardeners. I think that is the biggest barrier to letting people just enjoy their outdoor space. Maybe they're going to buy an Agapanthus in flower for four months, throw it out and buy something new next year. A plant is better on the compost heap than it is just abandoned. You know what I mean, I don't know.
Kate Turner: It's really interesting you said that, because I was talking to Natalie Boynton from Happy Plants. Not in a bad way, she calls them 'plonkers'. They do these collections now where people buy a six-pack and plonk it on the table.
Michael Perry: It would be the best thing to turn into a subscription service for people to get by mail order. Love that. Really cool.
Phil Wright: Love that.
Michael Perry: Remember that one. Also from Natalie Boynton, which is a phrase she used to use but has now forgotten about, so I can easily use it without copyright: the green-fingered and the clean-fingered.
Kate Turner: No, she did say that.
Michael Perry: Yeah, I know. But because Clean Fingered is those people like the Dutch people.
Kate Turner: They want it to look nice.
Michael Perry: They want to do a makeover in their garden. They're going to buy maybe a Sundaville that flowers for two months. They'll then throw it out and buy a Kalanchoe. What is wrong with that? You throw out a bunch of flowers. Why can you not throw out something when it's got roots on it?
Kate Turner: I find that.
Michael Perry: How is that different?
Kate Turner: I think that's because my heritage is keeping things going. But I don't know. I do now say to people, look, if you've got a small garden and something looks crap, chuck it out. Get rid of it.
Michael Perry: We're always telling people off when we're advising them about the garden.
Kate Turner: But it's composting, if people are composting rather than just throwing it in the bin.
Michael Perry: But it's also potentially then going in green waste as well.
Kate Turner: Yeah. True. You know, and you're using it back on your garden.
Michael Perry: I think there are so many ways we're making people heavy with conscience when it comes to growing something, and making it so complex.
Kate Turner: I do get that. I know, I suppose for me, I love imparting my knowledge and my passion.
Michael Perry: Which is great.
Kate Turner: And that's something I love. But I do get it. My only worry is with the way garden centres are going. I've walked through Glee and seen some things, and you might call me a snob, which is fine.
Michael Perry: I know.
Kate Turner: It does worry me about plastic waste and how much tat.
Michael Perry: Yes, the stylishness. But who's to judge that? When you've got a metal snail with a smiley face, who's to say what style is? That's fine. You mean the plastic?
Kate Turner: What I mean is that we've been fighting for peat-free and sustainability, people are getting done for greenwashing, and a lot of manufacturers are working really hard. But suddenly, more than ever this year, you've got plastic topiary, plastic hedging and plastic flowers. That's what I'm talking about. There's so much more of it, and I would like Glee not to be showcasing products that have come all the way from China.
Michael Perry: It's difficult because I can see a small market for some of that. If you've got an indoor space you can't bring to life with real plants, who wants to waste money on another living wall that isn't maintained? There could be a place for it. Do you see what I mean? It's when it gets out of hand. What I'd like to see is a great programme for recycling that stuff. I was just talking to elho: they used to recycle artificial turf into pots. But that's expensive. So maybe Glee does have a responsibility to limit that. I do think there's a market for it, perhaps with just one or two suppliers.
Kate Turner: The RHS gets into massive trouble with its shows if it has anything that isn't seen as green.
Michael Perry: Or on a commercial level as well.
Kate Turner: It shouldn't be happening at trade shows either. I don't just mean Glee.
Phil Wright: We started this conversation by talking about Monty Don leaving Gardeners' World. I just want to bring us back to that. Do we think we're ready for a female lead?
Michael Perry: Yes, for sure. Yeah, yeah. But I do think they're probably going to move to a mixed approach in a way. So yeah.
Phil Wright: A Match of the Day approach, rather than one person leading.
Kate Turner: It has been like that in the past for a little while. They've had Francis Tophill and Adam Frost. I worked on Gardeners' World many years ago, when they brought in Toby Buckland and changed the whole concept. They didn't have it based in someone's garden, and the hatred of the programme, the vitriol that came in through emails and letters, was extraordinary. People hated it.
Phil Wright: Why did they hate it, then?
Michael Perry: I think it was because it was different. People didn't want change. They really didn't want change. So Monty Don came back and it went back again. It became even more traditional.
Phil Wright: I don't remember the flow of it. Who was there before Toby Buckland?
Kate Turner: Before Toby, it was Monty Don. Before Monty Don, it was Alan Titchmarsh. Monty Don left and they brought in Toby Buckland, a younger chap who's brilliant. He's a really nice guy, but it was based in a different garden. It wasn't his garden. They turned it into little show gardens with different bits and bobs, and it was almost as if they tried to make it too different, too quickly. There's this core Gardeners' World audience that doesn't like change. So it will be interesting to see.
Michael Perry: I don't know, but what is the programme for? You're never going to please everyone. That's what we try to do in society, the media and every area: please everyone all the time. It's impossible, unsustainable and a bit dumb.
Phil Wright: But I think this is where it has almost become two programmes. People watch Gardeners' World for that plinky-plonky music and the birdsong, but also the unachievableness of the garden, because we like to dream.
Kate Turner: Aspirational. The aspirational side, yes, and that is okay. But the separate show we're talking about, this gardening One Show, is the one where the gardener presenting it has a three-bed semi. It's really day-to-day stuff: redoing my baskets this week, doing my lawn, that sort of thing. I've got the extension lead going through the lounge. Yes, I've got the Flymo out the front.
Michael Perry: The real gardeners. I think there are two different markets and we need to admit that it cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach.
Phil Wright: So why hasn't it happened? It's interesting. Maybe it's been tried and not quite worked.
Kate Turner: They could be a YouTube series.
Phil Wright: Could be quite interesting.
Kate Turner: Maybe it is already. Yes, we need to keep our eyes open. Those things need a bigger organisation to bring them together. Lots of people are doing their own thing separately, but it's hard for them to become big without the energy behind them.
Phil Wright: Holly Willoughby's just launched her show on YouTube.
Michael Perry: How's it doing?
Phil Wright: I think it's doing all right.
Kate Turner: I think it's more lifestyle.
Phil Wright: Compared with an ITV audience, I think it's much smaller. However, I think they knew it was going to be smaller, because it's a different format and the production costs are much smaller.
Kate Turner: But it's dry as an oatcake. It's very... There are hardly any different sections. I did watch one of them. Yeah. I think it'll change. I think. I felt it should have been more magazine-like. That allows us to add a lot more interest, be more commercial and appeal to the shorter attention spans we're potentially dealing with these days.
Phil Wright: I suppose when you're doing it on YouTube, it's quite difficult to get all the different people involved.
Kate Turner: I think it will change. I think YouTube will become much more like that.
Phil Wright: I think we've got a concept. Shall we...?
Kate Turner: Should we ask you a little bit about what you've been doing?
Michael Perry: Was this just a prelude?
Phil Wright: What's the time?
Michael Perry: No. You're fine. I got all the time for you guys.
Phil Wright: Well, we haven't, honestly.
Michael Perry: You've got to go off and get my cappuccino, right?
Kate Turner: That's Paul's job. So, I came on your Future Plants walking tour. I hadn't properly done the tour before. I'd only looked at your plants on the stand, and I really loved it. One thing I wanted to ask was: which plants make the cut? How do you make those choices? You go off around Europe, meet the breeders and work with them. It sounds fascinating. Going back to our magazine programme, that would make such a great feature: seeing behind the scenes.
Michael Perry: Honestly, you don't see much of that at all. Yes, let's talk about that as well.
Phil Wright: So what made the cut? How do you choose which plants go on Future Plants?
Michael Perry: We broke it down this year and made it a bit easier to navigate by having six separate themes. In previous years we had one display, but we now have six: hot and dry, damp and shady, houseplants, shrubs and perennials, wildlife gardening, and new and exclusive. So kind of like once we kind of built those trends, it's kind of a little bit easier to slot different things in there, but it includes new genetics, sorts of things that are different, things that are unusual because it's not always about new genetics, it's about rediscovery of things. Plants that sold well 20 years ago might be a different market for it now. Exactly. Different audiences, different growing conditions, different climates: a lot of these things. So yes, it's been fun.
Kate Turner: It must be fun when you're going around the breeders and looking at the plants. When you spot something, what catches your eye? What makes you think, 'That's the one. That's really exciting'?
Michael Perry: It's a whole cocktail of knowledge: knowing what came before, seeing what's different and knowing what customers respond to, especially in a mail-order environment. What looks good on a page is a good starting point for what looks good in a garden centre, because you have to work harder with mail order. You need something that looks really good when it's in flower and you take the photo. In a garden centre you've got different ways to sell it. It's also about knowing what the market needs. Maybe I've seen a dwarf Buddleja that's better than a tall Buddleja, much more compact, and has real wow factor.
Kate Turner: Or the story as well, because it might not be a plant that looks that amazing, but if there's a story behind it.
Michael Perry: Yeah. Lovely story about that. So it is about yeah, it's the appearance and the story. But more and more, I did a talk in Poland last week and we talk about like Gen Z and why they buy a plant that maybe looks ugly to traditionalists. And this was kind of like talking about like maybe wildflowers, weeds, things that don't look traditionally pretty. And it was really kind of like people are buying plants with a purpose more and more these days as well. So it doesn't have to look traditionally pretty, but it needs that purpose or story around it. Really? Yeah.
Kate Turner: Well, I love the goth gardening. Yeah.
Michael Perry: It's such a big movement with the dark flowers, dark leaves as well. Yeah, yeah.
Phil Wright: Do you think the industry has got a problem with an obsession over newness with always wanting new things? And actually, there's so many beautiful plants and really lovely plants that we just get ignored now because everybody wants the new thing.
Michael Perry: That's true, but you said it as if it was a bad thing.
Kate Turner: I still think there are enough traditional gardeners who are happy with the Hydrangea they've been growing for years and don't want to replace it. One problem is that plant breeding takes such a long time. You might discover a trend you want to fill, but by the time that plant is ready for sale, the trend has gone.
Phil Wright: True. Does that happen much?
Michael Perry: It can do. But then you build the trend. We build the trends around the plants at the end of the day. Do you know what I mean?
Phil Wright: That's very fashion-industry, isn't it?
Michael Perry: I think you seed the trends. I think we touched on this last year, but trends move more slowly in the gardening world. They're perhaps five-year cycles. In answer to your point about newness, I guess it's like any company wanting to draw attention back to itself. It's nice to showcase something new each year, but you have to remember that newness isn't always about something that dazzles us. Sometimes it's about invisible traits. You might have a new petunia that's two weeks earlier for the grower, or which fits more efficiently on a Danish trolley. Those are invisible traits that can make the grower more efficient and mean the end consumer pays less for the product. There are many reasons to introduce new items. It can also be about improving something that already exists. With lavender, there are so many new varieties that should take over from older ones. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's a lot of different reasons why you would launch a new product.
Phil Wright: So it isn't just a trend.
Michael Perry: It could be a spectacle, but it can also solve a problem. As I say, there are invisible traits, or it can simply keep people excited.
Kate Turner: Well, you were talking. You were talking about conifers quite a lot. They were massive in the seventies and have really gone out of fashion, but you talked about their wildlife benefits, which I'd never really thought about before.
Michael Perry: I think 'conifer' is such a dirty word that we almost don't embrace talking about them. I may have told this story before, but take this new El Paso.
Kate Turner: It looks like a cactus.
Michael Perry: Yes, it looks like a cactus in a cowboy film. It's amazing. I was talking about it to a garden-centre customer, I think it was Baileys of Worcester last year. We talked about it for ten minutes and then, in the last paragraph, I mentioned it was a conifer. 'I don't want it.' Oh, really? Because suddenly you're thinking: conifers are going to take over your garden, or they're going to go brown at the bottom. All these things you worry about. There's been such bad PR around conifers. Why mention the name? Let's drop it. The best promotion I've seen is from the We Love Conifers brand in Boskoop in the Netherlands. They started talking about building a Tuscan garden. What a lovely name for it. Conifers are drought-tolerant and sun-loving: all the things they give you that we've forgotten about.
Kate Turner: Yes, of course.
Michael Perry: I flipped that around a bit. I'm now calling conifers 'Tuscan evergreens'. Love it. Yeah. They're evergreen and climate-tolerant. They love the heat and sun. They also give birds places to nest and insects places to hibernate. Bees get pollen from Pinus in the spring as well. They look good. They're like a chocolate box of plants, and they're great for beginner gardeners. You cannot go wrong with conifers, unless you plant Leylandii. There is education around that. I've been putting some videos together with Golden Grove, and we've been looking at alternatives to Leylandii. We've also been looking at true dwarf conifers, not slow-growing ones that suddenly trick you. The education is there, but let's drop the name. Tuscan evergreens. Exactly. There's one for every season. When you see ones like El Paso or Whipcord, they look fundamentally different. This is where we're trying to be too good as gardeners. Let's sell them as products and let people enjoy them. We don't have to convince everyone or teach them every corner of gardening. Let them soak up the bits. But I see you recoil at that.
Kate Turner: No, I'm not recoiling. I'm feeling guilty of doing that. And it's so true. Matthew Pottage, who was curator at Wisley and is now with the Royal Parks, has a real passion for conifers. You should get together with him.
Phil Wright: Yeah. No, he's been on our podcast.
Kate Turner: He keeps ignoring us.
Phil Wright: No, just keep doing it. Ask a hundred times and you get it once. And we've been talking about El Paso and things like that. Do you find that sometimes you come across a plant and the trade absolutely loves it, but actually consumers just don't get it at all.
Michael Perry: It can happen if something doesn't necessarily have a story. The trade, and the grower in particular, is looking at different criteria: they want something that fits into their programme and which they can deliver. The grower has to remain aware of what the consumer wants. I think there can be so many links in the chain that people don't leapfrog them to see what the consumer wants. Sometimes it's very useful for consumers to walk into trade shows. I've just been at the Polish fair Zieleń to Życie, the Green Is Life show, and on the Saturday members of the public are the visitors. The suppliers can observe what the public likes at the show, which is gold dust. But the grower can be an obstacle in the middle because it needs to fit into production and fit on a trolley. I understand that, of course, but it's about looking through different eyes all the time. Sometimes products simply don't land. More and more, though, we're getting intelligent about how we launch products. Hydrangea Groundbreaker has had such an excellent launch. It's been all over social media, and I work a lot with Alex Schoemaker, who developed the variety. I asked him whether they'd sent instructions out, because it has been in garden centres everywhere and they've all been making videos about it. He said no, they'd done it themselves. Two things have happened at the same time: garden centres have started to take on their own social media.
Kate Turner: Have you noticed this?
Phil Wright: Really funny.
Michael Perry: As a little side dish, if we're going to talk about feminism for a moment, they're using a lot of handsome men to make those videos. Have you noticed? It's quite a movement.
Phil Wright: It's a trend. It's called 'hot gardeners'. The hot gardeners are all men.
Michael Perry: Only men. Why aren't we doing that with women? Is that because of feminism?
Kate Turner: No, it's because women get trolled online so much more. You can have a hot male gardener, like Johnny in tight shorts, but there's a young woman who gardens in a tight vest top and she gets awful abuse and trolling. That's different from men. Really disgusting comments. I think that's the issue, and it comes down to sexism, not feminism.
Michael Perry: Oh, you're right.
Phil Wright: So men are allowed to be hot, while women are... That's funny.
Michael Perry: It's bizarre because sometimes I think, 'You're really objectifying men here.' But it's such an interesting route for garden centres to take. I never saw that coming.
Kate Turner: Chippendales are seen as fun, whereas female strippers are seen as sleazy.
Michael Perry: What an interesting plot twist: garden-centre staff being used to advertise plants. Who saw that coming? I've seen some amazing launches done that way. It's incredible.
Kate Turner: Really fun.
Phil Wright: Oh, wow. I know you've been canvassing people's opinions on AI in garden marketing and the way people are using it, so I wanted to ask: what's your opinion of it?
Michael Perry: I feel it hasn't quite shaken out yet. AI could be useful for many things, but growing is so subjective because all plants behave differently. It's something where you can't get away from having a human hand involved. Of course a small proportion of people use it, but I think people will become wise to the fact that it isn't giving them what they need, and they'll trust the human touch. I feel like growing is still such a human experience that AI won't take much away from it. What's also interesting is that Instagram photos now tell you in the corner if they're AI content. I think our eyes are being trained to look for that more than we realise, because we're suspicious of these things. We're within gardening content creation, of course, but I think the general public will start to be trained to look in the corner for the AI-content label.
Phil Wright: I think you may be giving them a bit more credit than they deserve.
Michael Perry: I don't know. We're still very early in this journey. Substack now has a way of identifying AI content too - not exactly a tracker, but it can recognise it. That scanner is really interesting because people will start to train themselves to notice it. But I think that is five, six or seven years away. It may only happen after the public has been disappointed: buying a Hosta with pink leaves that doesn't exist, for example. It will take a little time, but you'll get that AI slop. People will start to turn away from it. Of course, some of it might remain, just as some people will still have fake turf, fake topiary balls and a grey fence.
Phil Wright: One of the problems is authenticity. You were showing us a picture earlier of a plant which looked completely different in autumn from the way it looks while it's growing.
Kate Turner: People are going to wonder whether that's real. Unless they see an AI-generated tag in the corner, they won't know what to trust.
Michael Perry: They didn't believe it at first, did they? What picture did I show you?
Kate Turner: You were showing us the brush-like plant. Oh yes. It was a Kochia.
Michael Perry: Yes, this amazing, conifer-like plant that you grow from seed. I think we're still early in all this. But it will take a little while to shake out, and I think the public will get there. The government is probably fearful or aware of it, and is taking steps to help people identify it more and more. It may become something you look for as a matter of course, like rejecting cookies on a website. It will start to be built in.
Phil Wright: That's an interesting angle: perhaps a website could detect the hand of AI and flash up to tell you.
Michael Perry: That's really clever.
Phil Wright: And then the consumer can make the choice.
Kate Turner: One issue with AI for content creation, even with gardening, is that I sometimes use a feature that lets me put myself behind the text. That can be labelled as AI.
Phil Wright: Does it actually? Because the editing software has used it.
Kate Turner: I think it might.
Phil Wright: The editing software has used AI, which I don't really like.
Michael Perry: I think it's still being defined and that's part of the journey. I'll tell you something funny. We said we were going to go 'pants down' on this podcast today, didn't we?
Phil Wright: We'll just cut it.
Michael Perry: There's someone working in the gardening industry...
Phil Wright: Are they here?
Michael Perry: No, I don't think they're here. But I saw a picture of them recently and thought, 'They're looking in really good shape at the minute.' Then I looked in the top-left corner and it said, 'AI content'.
Phil Wright: Guns?
Michael Perry: Yes. I don't think they'd edited their arms.
Phil Wright: Oh no.
Kate Turner: I did that by mistake.
Phil Wright: I don't think they realised. Unless they'd changed the colour of the Heliopsis. What did you do, make yourself muscly?
Kate Turner: Not muscly. I don't know what I did, but it made me look like I looked 30 years ago and I found it really depressing. It was so easy: the touch of a button, suddenly. But that's not me. If somebody were to meet me, they'd be really disappointed. It's like a dating profile.
Phil Wright: No one would be disappointed.
Kate Turner: You know what I mean?
Phil Wright: Honestly, how are you this adorable?
Kate Turner: It's just: 'Oh my God, that's me, but not me.' Why do people do that? It's frightening that it's so readily available.
Michael Perry: I think it will become more and more detectable, and the general public will become more aware of it, just as we've become used to cookies and two-step verification on social-media accounts. It will become a habit.
Kate Turner: Yep.
Phil Wright: I've got a quick question for you. You present on QVC. With the products you present there, is there a particular type that comes through and makes you think, 'This will work really well for us,' while there are others you won't touch at all?
Michael Perry: Oh, definitely.
Phil Wright: What is it that makes a product work?
Michael Perry: You can certainly see some products they try and think, 'That's never going to work,' because you've got to know your customer and your demographic. That audience, as much as you try to shift it, is predominantly female and aged 55 to 65. There's a certain type of plant they look for. You can push it sometimes, as long as it has a story, looks good and provides a solution. You really need any two of those three criteria when you're launching a product. But there's a certain style of product, and it has to be a good garden plant. I did a study for the show in Poland last week. They asked me to talk about why Gen Z buys ugly plants. We were talking about how a wild plant might not look as attractive, and looking at what the different generations buy. Millennials, for example, might have more disposable income. They've got their first house, they're happy to invest and they're starting that knowledge journey with the garden. Baby boomers are looking for something more recognisable. They might buy a petunia that is now green-flowered and purple, which is weird and different, but probably not something with a name they don't know or understand. It has to be relatable. There are different markets for these things and you can't shift them too much. You've got to go where people are. I can never get Facebook audiences to listen to a podcast, and you can't get Instagram users to go to Twitter. People are comfortable where they're comfortable. Stop the fight. Work with them where they are. Don't make life difficult for yourself.
Phil Wright: I read a really interesting article the other day about rare plants, specifically houseplants. It said that ten years ago rare houseplants were at a real premium. Then someone in a lab worked out tissue culture and how to develop them, and suddenly rare plants have become mass-market because you can buy them in garden centres. I wondered whether you had a take on that, and whether something similar is happening elsewhere in the industry.
Michael Perry: It's about making rarer plants more accessible. It's nice because it brings more unique things to market, but then you wonder what comes next and what counts as rare after that. Looking at the different demographics, it was definitely Gen Z who wanted more unique things and were happy to pay for them, even though they might have less disposable income. But yeah, I think again, if something's got a story behind it, then it's going to work.
Kate Turner: But that's like anything in fashion, isn't it? The big fashion houses design something and then cheaper copies follow.
Phil Wright: It trickles down, doesn't it?
Michael Perry: Always. When I was at the Melbourne show, they were selling Monstera Thai Constellation for about £15.
Kate Turner: No way.
Phil Wright: They were never that price.
Michael Perry: In seven-centimetre pots. It just happens, and that's progress, really. Fashion is a good comparison. Yesterday I was at the Changemakers or Future Leaders lunch, and Jeff Banks gave a talk.
Phil Wright: I heard Jeff Banks did.
Michael Perry: It was really interesting. He said he feels garden centres are the high streets of the future, because they've become this one-stop shop. That's where plants are only 30 per cent, but I don't think we should be ashamed of that. We should be honoured that plants are part of the whole mix.
Phil Wright: Because if you want purely plants, you've got the...
Kate Turner: Specialist.
Michael Perry: Specialist nurseries, which we need to build up and help anyway. Garden centres are evolving into lifestyle centres, in my opinion. As they build up farm shops, restaurants, perhaps aquariums and so on, Jeff thinks fashion will be the next frontier and will grow in the same way it has in supermarkets.
Phil Wright: Blue Diamond is already doing some of that.
Kate Turner: Quite a few stores are already doing that.
Phil Wright: I thought that was really interesting.
Kate Turner: You've got brands such as Saltrock in quite a lot of garden centres.
Michael Perry: He sees that happening, and I think it's going to grow.
Phil Wright: They are becoming department stores.
Michael Perry: Of the future.
Phil Wright: Especially some of the ones such as Blue Diamond.
Michael Perry: But is there still resistance to that from the purists?
Kate Turner: I don't know.
Michael Perry: I always wonder how houseplant shops survive. Have you ever had a houseplant shop on the podcast?
Phil Wright: No, but we tried to get Ben Newell from Worcester Terrariums.
Michael Perry: Because all the Little Dobbies did really badly, didn't they? With a houseplant shop, you get something similar to an independent garden centre: care, attention and specialist knowledge. If you shrink a garden centre into that format, the specialist knowledge may be there, but the public's perception is different. It's a big brand. You immediately think it's like walking into B&Q and no one's going to have the knowledge, whether or not it is actually there. But with an independent with a cute name such as Urban Tropicana, you get to know them.
Kate Turner: You also had Prick.
Michael Perry: That was one of the first as well. You're immediately in a different place in terms of relating to that brand. Having a social-media presence really helps a lot of those companies as well, and I don't know whether Little Dobbies really did that alongside it.
Phil Wright: I think one of the problems was that they were gearing up to sell the whole business. They put them in there to say, 'Look at the opportunity.' I think it's a bit cynical, to be honest. I don't think they really...
Kate Turner: ...approached it in the right way.
Phil Wright: Which is a shame. I got really excited when I first heard about it. They had this store somewhere in Northern Ireland, and it was their biggest. Then they said they were launching Little Dobbies and I imagined little Dobbies everywhere.
Michael Perry: There's something about a brand having too many things. The general buying public is quite discerning. If we see too much of something, we're a bit like, 'Whoa, hold on. Give me some space.'
Kate Turner: I just think people aren't going into the high street.
Phil Wright: There are plenty of people who want to go to the high street because they can walk there. If they're in the city, they may not have a car, so they can't go to the big shops. They want to be able to carry back flat-pack compost and a little pot. There is an opportunity.
Michael Perry: I've often thought, young Phil, that there's an opportunity for a mobile garden centre. I've told garden centres this many times. When did I last say it to someone? This is me. We talked about this earlier, didn't we? I'm giving out free ideas all the time.
Phil Wright: It'll come back to you.
Michael Perry: Not many people make things happen. But that's part of why people want to work with me: I'm open. So, a mobile garden centre. Imagine this...
Kate Turner: I know you mean it when you grab my arm.
Michael Perry: Here we go. Here we go. Kate...
Kate Turner: I'm listening.
Michael Perry: Imagine a library van. A stripped-out library van that's now a mobile plant truck. It also has two or three of each compost, pots and everything else. You go specifically to areas with bungalows and older people who can't get out. You take the garden centre to them in an old library van.
Kate Turner: I love that.
Michael Perry: Wouldn't that be cool? Oh my God, it's my idea.
Phil Wright: That's it, then.
Michael Perry: That's a community thing. You're going to your customer. Also, why does the milkman never sell compost?
Kate Turner: They do. Milk & More sells Durstons.
Michael Perry: Oh that's nice.
Kate Turner: How did we not know this? I don't know. I was offered it as a prize. It was offered for a competition. On the back of a milk float, like when the Slaters arrived in EastEnders.
Phil Wright: I was thinking Benny Hill. Showing my age.
Michael Perry: But honestly: a library van reconditioned to be a mobile garden centre.
Kate Turner: I've got a van. I've got a camper van. There we go.
Michael Perry: Someone did do that. One of the first times I saw it was with Tula House, a houseplant shop in Brooklyn, New York. For a while they had a truck that went around. In China, in season, they often have a man with a little van. He parks on the corner of different neighbourhoods with his mobile houseplant shop. That's pretty common.
Kate Turner: I like that. I love that idea. I could sell my herbs. What's the one thing the garden sector could learn from outside its own industry?
Michael Perry: Perhaps merchandising in the broadest sense. Or linking what happens in store to what happens online. We're using online to promote things a lot, but can people find them when they get into the garden centre? Going the other way, when you're in the garden centre, can you go online and find out more about what's coming next? Plants come in and out; they're such a moving target. It's not like a product that's on the shelf for years. It's on the shelf for weeks, so you've got to move quickly. I don't know whether this fully answers the question, but there's a garden centre in Cheshire that I'm a big fan of called Okells. They've gone outside themselves and, I think, learned from Pinterest. When you go there, it's like a Pinterest board. It's beautiful. I went there in spring and they had these lovely white-themed merchandising areas with beautiful variegated Cornus. It looked like an Instagram post or a Pinterest pin. They've looked outside the sector at how people style social-media posts, then created that in real life, which is pretty cool. So that's one idea for how to merchandise, and an example of where I've seen it happening already.
Phil Wright: I like that.
Kate Turner: That's brilliant. What a great way to end. Thank you so much, Michael. It's always a pleasure to talk to you, and I think it's going to be a cracking episode.
Michael Perry: I love to think about it, and we've got some new businesses we're going to crack on with.
Phil Wright: Exactly. Let's get the van out.
Michael Perry: I feel we've got some soundbites as well. Ding-dong!
Kate Turner: Ding-dong. Thank you. Brilliant. Thank you.