Spring Things

Are you new to gardening? You'll want to have some basic guidance before you put your hands in the soil.

NGA promotes gardening by helping home gardeners succeed, growing in health, knowledge, environmental awareness, and enthusiasm. In the numerous ways the National Gardening Association reaches gardeners, we help make home and community gardens greener and more productive. From vegetables, herbs, fruits, trees, lawns, flowers, and houseplants, we provide people with the information they need to get started in the world of gardening and grow and maintain thriving, sustainable, and environmentally responsible food gardens and landscapes.

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A nineteenth-century entrepreneur's bold, innovative marketing helped transform flower gardens into one of America's favorite hobbies. “There is much that is hard and productive of sorrow in this sin-plagued world of ours; and, had we no flowers, I believe existence would be hard to be borne.” So states a customer's 1881 letter—one of thousands James Vick regularly received. Vick's business, selling flower seeds through the mail, wasn't unique, but it was wildly successful because he understood better than his rivals how to engage customers'emotions. He sold the love of flowers along with the flower seeds. Vick was genuinely passionate about floriculture, but he also pioneered what we now describe as integrated marketing. He spent a mind-boggling $100,000 per year on advertising (mostly to women, his target demographic); he courted newspaper editors for free publicity; his educational guides presaged today's content marketing; he recruited social influencers to popularize neighborhood gardening clubs; and he developed a visually rich communication and branding strategy to build customer loyalty and inflect their purchasing needs with purchasing desire.