L.E. Cooke Water Wise Landscape Trees & Plants List As I write this the West is in a serious drought. Droughts or low rainfall years are not uncommon in the West. In the last few years we have seen several drought issues in Texas and even in Georgia and the Southeast. Cycles in rainfall and water availability happen. Surely, I have no desire to open the can of worms as to the causes or engage…

See Introductory Article here: Taste Is Tops   1)  Locate your Sunset Climate Zone by Region here: SUNSET CLIMATE ZONES MAPS   2) Click on Zone Number in Left Column for PDF of Recommended Variety List   SUNSET   ZONE ZONE DESCRIPTION REPRESENTATIVE CITIES A1 Alaska's Interiors: No List Created - Can anything survive there? A2 Anchorage & Cooke Inlet: No List Created Yet - but there is hope of a very short list A3…

This post might get me in trouble.  I might offend those tasteless people with poor tasters underdeveloped uninitiated taste buds. A story from my past:  For 16 years, before I returned to the family business, I worked at Westinghouse Electric Corporation in various engineering and management positions.  On several occasions, I had the duty privilege of visiting corporate headquarters in Pittsburgh, PA (beautiful city except most of my trips were in freezing or sweltering times…

James is video recording a session with Lloyd for the LEC YouTube Channel. This one is being taken in the Jujubes. This summer our enterprising and multi-talented sales staff took some time out of their busy sales trip schedules to create informative videos for our customers to use. Lloyd Cassidy has been the on-camera "host" for most of these sessions. James Shao has been the videographer. Ernie Adamakis has been the editor, director and driving…

I wanted to write this last year at this time but did not have the guts. Now that I am seeing it again, it is time to say something. Some retail nurseries need to take a hard look at themselves as they are the cause of their own failure. Last year in April-May I did a 3 week Texas sales trip covering from Laredo, through San Antonio, Hill Country, Austin and Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. Last…

      In recent years I have had mixed feeling about our Lilac Poster.  This poster was the first (and so far only) poster we have made and I had high expectations for it back in the days before we even had a website.  It was originally received well and continues to be received well for the ones we still give out.  After all, photos are always in demand and help sell products. But…

Tim, owner of Old Towne Nursery in Tehachapi, CA, shared with us the way he uses the Point of Sale pages to help sell his trees. He uses the large wooden fruit bins for holding the trees and attaches the laminated pages to the bins. For a relatively small community, Tim's nursery blows through a lot of trees each spring. Tim, thank you for sharing your photos and ideas with all of us.

Point of Sale (POS) Information Pages I am always amazed at the vast amount of knowledge every retail nursery person maintains in their heads. I have a hard time remembering all the details about our own products - to know the details of the thousands of other products is mind boggling. But even if you know it all, you cannot always be available to answer every customer's question. You need the silent helpers in the…

Frequently we receive requests from nurseries and other people trying to quantify the value of trees in the landscape or to the environment.  Those of us in the industry know how hugely important trees are for the environment and the local economy.  But how do you quantify it - especially if you are talking to your local governmental authority that controls the budget for their urban forests or state legislatures trying to solve their budget…