Registration Details

Cost:
$45.00 first NHLA/NHPGA member ($42 each additional firm representative); $45 for walk-ins (lunch not guaranteed for walk ins)

RSVP by January 6
Registration Form: print this form and send with payment to:
Guy Hodgdon, NHLA Business Manager, 50 Debbie Lane, Eliot, ME 03903

Questions? Contact Guy Hodgdon, nhla@comcast.net

Review of Educational Sessions and Speaker Bios

Keynote: Setting, Following,and Avoiding Trends for Businesses in 2012

This year’s meeting will cover a wide range of business and industry topics and will open with the keynote speaker, Bridget Behe of Michigan State University.

Many of our businesses are small, but the demands and challenges are quite large. How do businesses sort through trends that should be followed and those that should be avoided? Do consumers really want to follow my business on social media? Where are consumers on the local and sustainable issues? How will recession recovery impact spring sales? Information presented in the 90-minute seminar will include profitable and avoidable trends for growers, retailers, and landscape service providers.

Ms. Behe is currently a Professor of Horticulture at Michigan State University. She teaches classes and conducts research on marketing horticultural products, both edible and ornamental. Bridget has conducted over 75 consumer and market research projects, written more than 500 publications in the trade press, and peer-reviewed journals. One key research project underway is to profile consumer segments with regard to their preferences for locally-, sustainably-, and organically-grown edible and ornamental plants. She joined Michigan State’s faculty in August 1997 as an Associate Professor, after serving for eight years as Assistant Professor then Associate Professor at Auburn University in Alabama. Bridget speaks to professionals and industry groups regionally and nationally each year. She has been the marketing columnist for GMPro magazine for 14 years.

Other sessions include:

Are You Prepared for the Cultural Shift? — Marketing Plants to Future Generations?

How well do you know and engage in your community? If you plan to sell to the hip 55+ crowd and future generations, you’d better take a look at what you are presenting. Do you have a Facebook page? Do you need one? Take a look at the way you reach out to customers and how you communicate. Something’s got to change because what you are doing right now won’t work in the future. Many garden centers and nurseries around the U.S. are failing. The world has changed. The population has changed. I’s OUR turn to change.

Angela Palmer's career has spanned almost every aspect of gardening, from design to teaching how to garden with natives. She most recently managed the development of gardens for the U.S. National Arboretum. Formerly, Angela managed new plant introduction and marketing for the Chicago Botanic Garden and The Conard-Pyle Co. She founded and now co-owns Plants Nouveau, LLC, a company that specializes in introducing new plants, especially selections of natives (www.plantsnouveau.com). She’s also been the Director of the Native Plants in the Landscape Conference for eight years, and she frequently writes about marketing and introducing new plants for Garden Center Magazine.

Is the Investment Worth the Return?” Tools to Determine if the Investment Will Provide a Sufficient Return: Learn how to make informed decisions on investments

Mike McPhail is a Credit Representative with Farm Credit East’s Bedford, NH office. Farm Credit East, ACA is a farmer-, forester-, and fishermen-owned cooperative which provides credit and financial services to its member-customers. Among their products are loans, leases, business and tax consulting services, tax preparation/reporting, recordkeeping, and appraisal services. Mike manages a loan portfolio covering the eastern part of New Hampshire.
Biocontrol in Landscapes and Natural Areas

There are many new and effective biological control programs underway in New England against key invasive insects and weeds. We will discuss the opportunities and limitations for biological control against such pests as lily leaf beetle, swallow-worts, hemlock woolly adelgid, mile-a-minute vine, birch leafminer, phragmites australis, winter moth, and others. Alternative management techniques, including pesticides will also be covered.

Richard A. Casagrande is a Professor of Entomology at URI where he teaches courses in Insect Pest Management, biological control, and cultural entomology. He chairs the regional project in biological control of insects and weeds and is currently working on biological control of several insects and weeds.

Hungry Plants? Not in My Garden Center.

Maintaining a nutritional program in a retail setting can be difficult. We are challenged with high turn over rates on some products and low turn over rates on others, and they all need to be maintained side-by-side using seasonal labor. Learn to avoid nutritional problems in a retail setting plus learn to identify some of the most common nutritional problems encountered and how to satisfy your plants’ hunger.

Brian A. Krug is an Extension Assistant Professor/Specialist in Greenhouse and Floriculture Crops at the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension. Brian joined UNH in 2008 and has focused on grower outreach and research focused on plant nutrition and plant growth regulators. Brian has been an invited speaker throughout New England and the country. He is creator of and regular to Greenhouse Grower’s FloriCAST podcast.

NH's New Rules on Certification Eligibility Requirements for
Lawn-Care and Right-of-way Pesticide Appllications

This session will cover what these new rules involve, what is covered and what is not. Following the presentation Robert Wolff and members of the pesticides training committee will answer questions about the training that will be required to be certified for a pesticides license.

Robert Wolff has worked for the NH Division of Pesticide Control for over 20 years, the first five implementing and administering the Division’s endangered species and worker-protection programs, and the last fifteen administering the Division’s water quality and special permit programs. Prior to that he worked for private industry for 16 years. Robert also spent 20 years as a private consultant to the chemical and utilities industries in fields unrelated to pesticides.