Growers are always looking for ways to cut costs, and a new product at Clearwater Nursery Inc., has streamlined both production and shipping costs for the Nipomo, CA, firm. Called the Garden Trio, the new product is easier to produce, lighter to ship and requires less store preparation to display.

Steven Medeiros, sales and marketing executive at Clearwater, said the Garden Trio is “a win-win for us, the grower, and for supermarkets because it weighs less, costs less to ship and requires no special preparation for store display.”

Steven Medieros, sales and marketing executive at Clearwater Nursery Inc., holds a Garden Trio plant dish that streamlines shipping and production costs by using new materials and techniques. The Garden Trio was on display at the recent International Floriculture Expo in Miami Beach, FL.The Garden Trio consists of three plants of varying heights: Calla is the tallest tier, Kalanchoe is the middle tier, and trailing ivy grows at the lowest level. The plants fit in a one-piece plastic dish used for shipping and display. Clearwater sells the Garden Trio as a grower’s choice program, but will customize orders with sufficient lead time.

At IFE, Clearwater introduced a shipping method using Gaylord bins, often called watermelon bins. The bins stack the product three pallets high with 24 units per pallet. This saves shipping costs because the product is delivered in bulk, and because it is in growing medium rather than dirt.

Customers are told in the care and handling information to use four-and-one-half-inch pots to transplant within the Garden Trio container “to bring beauty inside” by placing it in their homes. “The Garden Trio also is a wonderful patio décor,” Mr. Medeiros said.

“The Garden Trio offers the consumer a refillable table top presentation which is sure to generate repeat sales when the plants have flowered out. It also allows the consumer to individually water each plant to its individual requirement; this cannot be done when plants are transplanted in the same soil,” Mr. Medeiros observed.

Located on California’s Central Coast, Clearwater is a wholesale grower of blooming plants and foliage in 1.5 million square feet of greenhouse space. It offers products that are grown sustainably with water and energy conservation, reduced use of fertilizer and chemicals, and integrated recycling.