Wednesday, I was lucky enough to attend Fredriks Nursery’s “Customer Appreciation Day”. Since Fredriks is a wholesale nursery, its customers are retail nursery owners and employees from all over California. Audrey and Michael and I… who are beginning to feel like The Three Nursery Musketeers after our recent outings for Talini’s… made the one-hour drive from Sacramento to Ripon. Ripon, CA is a small town south of Manteca, CA.

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This was a great opportunity to see the growing operations of one of our primary suppliers of bedding plants, vegetable starts, gallon plants, mixed pots and hanging baskets. Upon entering the grounds, we were quite simply wowed. Fredriks is big. Fredriks is immaculate. Fredriks is well run. Fredricks’ employees are extremely personable. On top of all that… it’s chock full of horticultural color. Their thoughtful attention to detail at this event was impressive, and made us think a lot about how we do business.

We enjoyed our visit and the opportunity to meet everyone and see the greenhouses. It definitely helped to reinforce the reasons we carry Fredriks plants at Talini’s. On the retail end, we get so busy that we probably don’t take as much time as we should to become better acquainted with our suppliers. It was also really great to get a sneak peek at some upcoming plant varieties that will be showing up at local nurseries in Spring of 2014!

The Wake-Up Coffee

We had our choice of cookies, coffee and smoothies to start our day off right. Audrey enjoyed the cookies and we all enjoyed the coffee; I appreciated that they had soy milk as an alternative creamer but had to skip the cookies since I’m gluten- and dairy-free (wah!).

 The Greenhouse Tour!

 

The Seminar

Bill Calkins of Ball Horticulture led a discussion that centered around providing good customer service.

• Back to Basics
• Focusing on the consumer’s needs
• Customer Service
• Guest Panel
  • Del Blaylock, motivational speaker and owner of Golden Needle Tailoring in Alameda, CA
  • Cyndee Carvalho, General Manage of Alden Lane Nursery in Livermore, CA
  • Ron Hoffman, owner of Morris Nursery in Riverbank, CA

   

Special Guests

• Jose Sanchez- Ball Horticultural Company
• Dwight Deppen- Benary
• Fran Coyle & Andrew Easton- Norwood Industries
  

  Norwood makes the familiar Fredriks tags. Here’s a giant one!

• Camilla Valle- Pan American Seed
• Craig Anderson & Jim Lee- Western Pulp Products
  

  Say “pulp pots”!

  The Raffle (we didn’t win)

 

The Luncheon

Catered by Manteca Unified Vocational Academy (MUVA) Café

 

The Flowers!

And my favorite NEW PLANT SNEAK PEEK!

Coming to a nursery near you in Spring, 2014!

customer appreciation day, fredriks, greenhouse, ripon ca, tour, wholesale nursery