Pack Trials 2008

Our trip to the California Pack Trials was very successful. Jonathan Cottle, Director of Sales and Marketing, and I spent six days visiting with great companies. We want to thank everyone for the time they gave us and the outpouring of support for Hort Couture that we saw at every stop.

Day One was spent in the Santa Barbara area with most of the day spent with Geoff Needham at Plant Haven. We saw lots of cool new things and had a chance to really spend some good time getting to know Plant Haven better and sharing lots of ideas. They are the finest licensing company in the business. Trustworthy and impassioned with horticulture, we were very impressed with the entire experience. They were set up at Island View Nursery that is a very cool California Garden Center. After a quick stop at Suntory on the way home, we were very tired and jet lagged but excited for the opportunities that we saw.

The second day we spent the morning with Tim Wada at Plug Connection. It is a nice facility and Tim was very generous with his time. There were lots of interesting trials, great new plants and ideas at thier site. We hope to do many exciting projects with Plug Connection in the future!

After a quick stop at a specialty breeder we are working with and visiting SD Growers (a member of our Grower Network), we spent the early afternoon at Altman Plants. Deena Altman is a very cool lady that spent a lot of time with us and was very gracious. We toured several locations and were impressed by the quality of the product and how they do business. Smaller growers could learn much from larger mass merchant driven growers like Altman. Altman Plants is the largest succulent nursery in the world and the #10 Grower in the US.

We then went to Selecta First Class for a tour and spent time with Nils Klemm, the president of Selecta from Germany. He was very nice and we look forward to working with them for many years to come. We met Steve Zylstra there and had a great dinner on the ocean that night!

We also visited Euro American Propagators, Ecke Ranch and Rancho Tissue while in California.