WEST CHICAGO, IL – In the first month of its spring 2012 launch, the new mobile design tool “My Garden Designer” from Burpee Home Gardens® created over 3,000 mixed container recipes for home gardeners across the country. It also revealed gardening habits, color choices and preferences.
“The new ‘My Garden Designer’ tool not only makes garden design easy for home gardeners right from their mobile phones, but it is also providing some incredible insight on consumer gardening habits,” says Diane Hund, Director of Marketing for Burpee Home Gardens. “We’ve gathered input on color popularity, garden size, as well as planting preferences. Understanding the types of container recipes that the consumer ‘makes on her own’ is unchartered territory. This is really the first time we can get a glimpse into what combinations consumers are planting in pots or in the ground.”
This spring, gardeners have used My Garden Designer almost equally for both garden bed combinations (50%) and container/basket combinations (50%). The tool has also uncovered that 75% of gardeners created combo recipes for sun locations and 25% for shade.
Large garden beds still seem to be a popular project, taking the largest share of the overall recipes. For planting in garden beds, it was large (>6 ft.) that received the most choices at 56%, followed by medium (4-6 ft.) at 29% and small (2-4 ft.) at 15%. In containers, a mid-size container (16-24") is the most prevalent at 52%, followed by large (>24") at 31% and then small (10-16") at 17%.
My Garden Designer also offers a glimpse of consumers’ color preferences. Within “Fillers” there is a big diversity of color – with purple gaining the most use (24%), followed by red (18%), yellow (16%) and pink (15%).
“Spiller” choices tend to be more neutral-based colors with silver leading the way with 31% of the top selections, followed by white (14%) and green (14%).
Garden “Thrillers” focused on traditional garden color favorites of red (25%), green (23%) and pink (14%).
Launched for the spring gardening season of 2012, Burpee Home Gardens My Garden Designer mobile tool takes the guesswork out of flower color, height and compatibility. Through quick selections, gardeners create “thriller, filler, spiller” arrangements for patio containers or garden beds. The tool also suggests multiple designs, arrangement styles, creates a plant shopping list, and a where-to-buy store search.
“We continue to add new consumer-driven recipes everyday, and anticipate topping 10,000 before the end of the season,” Hund says.
For more information on the mobile tools from Burpee Home Gardens, visit www.BurpeeRetailIdeaCenter.com.
For further details about the Burpee Home Gardens program through Ball Horticultural Company, visit www.ballhort.com/BurpeeHomeGardens.
Burpee Home Gardens® is a program of garden-ready vegetables and flowers available nationally at retail garden centers. Backed by the 136-year history of Burpee, the first name in home gardening, Burpee Home Gardens provides gardeners with time-tested varieties and information, ideas and inspiration for success. For more information visit burpeehomegardens.com.
Source: Ball Horticultural Company