Ann, I hope this helps. I am not terribly interested in this since I usually do not purchase from J&P. Sammy Harry & David Sells Off Jackson & Perkins May 1, 2007 12:00 PM , By Jim Tierney JobZone Search and post jobs for the Multichannel Merchant. Including jobs for brand & agency marketers, e-commerce, catalog marketers, ops & fulfillment, direct marketing and more. Click here to access JobZone Find any supplier you need - agencies, CRM, fulfillment, lists, e-commerce, paper, printers, telemarketing, and more. Featured Categories Fulfillment Warehousing Lists & Data Telemarketing Merch. Order Processing Shipping & Distribution Print, Production & Paper Lists and Data Processing :: view all categories Get free access to more than 50,000 list data cards - one of the most comprehensive databases in the industry. >> Search Now Webinars Ask The Experts Calculators Glossaries Promo Calendar ListFinder Research Store Primers NCOF MCM Blog JobZone E-Newsletters Print Magazine Awards ACC Web 2.0 -- Build Community and Boost Conversion Rates Understanding Customer Experience Shape Up or Ship Out: The Role of Shipping in the Online Retail Customer Experience Bounce Management: Improve Your Email Deliverability WMS Upgrades: Report Reveals Five Critical Factors Now that gardening cataloger Jackson & Perkins is owned by a company specializing in horticulture, it may be in a better position for growth. On April 10, Medford, OR-based Harry & David Holdings sold most of the assets of the $73.8 million Jackson & Perkins, including the catalogs, the Website, the customer lists, and the inventory, for roughly $21 million to an investment group headed by Donald and Glenda Hachenberger. A second investment group has agreed to buy about 3,200 acres of Jackson & Perkins' growing fields in Wasco, CA, the so-called Rose Capital of the Nation, along with certain buildings and equipment. At press time, Charles "Chas" Fox was expected to take over as president of Jackson & Perkins. He is president of two other gardening catalogs, Park Seed Co. and Wayside Gardens, and of Southern Sun BioSystems, which licenses technology, materials, and equipment for plant propagation. Fox founded Hodges, SC-based Southern Sun in 1997, then sold it to the Hachenbergers. The Hachenbergers also own a stake in Park Seed and Wayside Gardens. Jackson & Perkins fits in with the audiences of both Park Seed/Wayside and Southern Sun, as it sells to consumers as well as to gardening centers. Fox told the Ashland (OR) Daily Tidings that the purchase was an "ideal opportunity" for the Hachenbergers' investment group. "For us, Jackson & Perkins is a one-of-a-kind brand," Fox said. "There's not another like it out there. It was an opportunity that probably wouldn't come down the pike again. Since November, we've gone through a tremendous amount of due diligence and data to see the value of the company and its potential. It's the most recognizable brand in the horticulture industry." The bloom off the rose? Jackson & Perkins is indeed a renowned and respected brand. But for the former parent company, it seemed the bloom was off the rose. For the fiscal year ended June 24, 2006, sales at Jackson & Perkins were down 2% from the previous year. The company blamed the decline primarily on weaker demand for roses among the merchant's reseller customers and on a shift in its direct marketing strategy that included lower circulation of catalogs with higher page counts, which resulted in higher average order sizes but lower overall sales. In comparison, annual sales for Harry & David Holdings increased nearly 6% last year, to $598.2 million. Direct sales for the Harry & David food gifts brand rose nearly 6%, while Harry & David store sales grew more than 13%. "The decision to divest Jackson & Perkins was made only after careful consideration of its strategic fit with our core gift and gourmet food businesses," Harry & David CEO Bill Williams said in a statement. To the Daily Tidings, Williams said, "If you look at this company as an outsider, I would say it clarifies our strategic focus on gifts and foods without a gardening substrategy." Williams said that some Jackson & Perkins employees would move on with the new ownership, while others will take Harry & David positions, and some will leave the company. Harry & David will provide wholesale operational services for Jackson & Perkins through 2007 and direct marketing operational work and other services through June 2008. http://multichannelmerchant.com/crosschannel/crosschannel/harry_david_sells/

How nice this thread got bumped! I enjoyed re-reading it and thinking about how much the yard has changed in a year. My bird-friendly yard is evolving. Have made great progress removing invasives, particularly Bittersweet, Buckthorn, and Norway Maples (treework cost me $2000 last year and there's still one GINORMOUS Norway maple left). There was a lot of brush created by all this tree/shrub work. Some was burned this Spring, right smack in the middle of the Oriental bittersweet patch, but the rest is in piles. The brush piles attract a lot of birds, particularly Sparrows, Cardinals, Juncos, and Wrens. The birds also love the back half-acre, which is wild and full of Crabapples, Choke Cherries, White Pine, and still some invasives like Honeysuckle and Autumn olive. Also making great progress on growing bird-friendly natives. Purchased another 50 native tree/shrub seedlings from the NH Nursery. That makes 130 total between this year and last - all of which ultimately make berries/nuts for the birds and wildlife. Most of them are in holding beds and haven't flowered yet, too little, but I've given away some and started to plant out a few. I winter-sowed many native species of perennials, annuals, and vines. Exactly where all this stuff is going, is not completely clear at this point, but I'm creating lasagne beds like crazy! The birds are always flitting around the yard and it's only going to get more interesting and fruitful for them (hopefully). It's great!

What a cool thread, rhizo! I've been wanting to post to it since the weekend but had my BIL here visiting. Retirement has opened up a whole new world to me in my backyard. Back in the winter many of you helped me when I started feeding the birds again and now I know many of my frequent visitors quite well. And I've been having the time of my life! Who needs vacation? I've been feeding the hummers for years and they stay my number 1 in terms of enjoyment. Not long ago I posted on another thread that I feared my little dark-headed boy was gone. Fortunately, it seems I was just missing him during all the storms we were having. This is his 3rd year at my feeders and he has always furiously defended them. Lately he has been allowing free passage to the Mother Hummer and her two juveniles. I wonder if the two of them are ready to mate again. I have noticed the Mother Hummer has been trying to run off the two young ones. I love them all so much! The mourning doves. Boy, someone was right when she referred to them as little piggies but I am so glad that I decided they were worth the extra seed it takes to keep them full and satisfied. I have 2 pairs and then a single male. He is called The Lonesome Dove. :) I do think he is lonesome and it makes me so sad. He sits on top of the shed roof, where I toss the seed, and coo's and coo's. Many times I've told him if he didn't act like such a jerk to other passing doves, he just might be able to find a mate that would put up with him! lol Now this might sound a little crazy, but I have made drawings of all the doves markings. Crazy, maybe, but I can now easily identify each one of them. I think the Lonesome Dove could be the young from last year of another pair that he did hang out with over winter. Now he has nothing to do with them and runs them off from feeding. Luckily they are able to get their share. The Waxwing Cedars.... I first discovered how fun these birds are back in the winter when they were on my privet bushes. After they cleaned out those berries and moved on I really did miss them. But, right on the edge of the woods I have a huge mulberry tree so they were back recently until the berries were gone. Wow, they can be very loud! They would come in small flocks and sometimes I bet there were a hundred at a time. Now that they're gone it seems too quiet. Yesterday, I don't know what I was seeing with the titmice but it was very interesting. They were making such a racket that I went to investigate. At first I thought babies were leaving the nest. I saw adults going for seed and then back to the baby. It appeared they were feeding it. Then I noticed that what I thought was a baby could have been an adult ruffling his feathers and flapping his wings in a mating ritual??? I don't know but wish I did. The reason I thought it was a baby was because it looked fuzzy/fluffy. But it looked like 3 or 4 others were feeding it. It was puzzling but interesting! A strange thing about the titmice is that they didn't seem to like my seed much until I threw out some parakeet seed to help stretch the last of the songbird seed I had. Now I'm throwing out a little parakeet seed every day and they keep coming back. They are also some noisy but fun birds. With bird feeding, the biggest surprise to me has been the realization that it's the same birds that frequent your feeders. I guess I never gave it much thought or maybe thought that birds just flit from neighborhood to neighborhood. It's just so interesting to watch a strange cardinal fly in only to be run off by the resident cardinal. But that same cardinal doesn't mind that the wrens, blue jays and doves eat there. Oh, I could go on and on but I won't. It should be obvious that I am thoroughly enjoying the birds! My entire backyard is closed in with a privacy fence so I don't see rabbits and deer, but I did have a run-in with a snake and it's fun to watch the squirrels in the trees. Please excuse the length but I did enjoy putting to text some of my expeditions into the world of backyard birding. :) I wish some of you would come back and give more detail about your skunks, mountain lions and bears!

Hi Pat, No, I also have a tube feeder with BOSS and safflower. Woodpeckers, bluejays, assorted sparrows, cardinals, goldfinches, et al, like the Lyric - and go through 4 lbs a day. The chickadees, nuthatches, titmouses, house finches seem to go more often to the safflower/BOSS feeder. The Lyric has seeds and nuts for all beak sizes. I am a non-discriminating birder. I feed crows, starlings, crackles, anybody that shows up here gets a meal and a drink. Having said that, their seasonal activities affect what I put out and when. I put the safflower and BOSS out originally to discourage the large flock of house sparrows which dominated the feeder and bath in the spring breeding season, to the exclusion of all others. I will stop the Lyric in the early spring when more natural food becomes available and breeding season brings every HS for miles. In summer, I use safflower/BOSS only when there are plenty of bugs and fruit available. A picture is worth...my feeding area this morning: RB Woodpecker, Juncos, Mourning Dove, Bluejay, Titmouse The Mourning Doves rock everything when they land so there is enough spillage for the ground feeders like the Juncos. I also switch the Lyric to add a suet cake for the winter sometimes, too. (going to have to make a decision about bird name capitalization...or not, lol. ) Jane