I don't have post cards but can easily get them OR I can't send you printes copies of digital photo's I've taken in my area ..I live 30 mile's South of Houston & 12 miles from Galveston Island & the gulf of Mexico .. I have pics taken at the beach on a ferry ride & others ..I can email you samples of the pics & if you let me know which you like I will print & mail them to you . I also have some beautiful pics of flowers & plants I've taken & pics taken @ the Tyler Tx rose garden last yr . Vicki My email address is Lookingforinfo20@aol.com

I hate cliche's like 'avoid the rush', but I start talking about stuff now so people have 'Spring' in their minds already. the biggest struggle is getting people to do a little advance planning. I keep thinking that if I can get people to book early then I won't go crazy with spring planting and fielding calls from everyone who seemed to forget that warm weather was going to arrive again, like it does every year. But most people don't want to think about Spring while it's still winter. The early birds get the worm though, and my best clients--the advance planners--get booked in first. I try to let people know that: if they wait until the last minute, I'll already be booked several weeks out. I wonder if that can somehow be transferred to the retail business--does your selection diminish rapidly after that first sunny day? People also like freebies and specials, so maybe you could have a march madness sale. or something to do with being green and st patrick's day. celebrate the vernal equinox by planting a tree. I mean, you don't need a sale in April, but maybe run different specials in March would help bring people in. Mix it up, to keep them coming back (20% off on Tuesdays, buy-one-get-one Wednesdays, etc.). Last spring here was really wet and warm and the weeds seemed to go crazy overnight. I got a lot of calls from people who were suddenly overwhelmed and scared at how much nature just retook their yards. mulching early, or a pre-emergent weed killer would have helped most of them. a reminder about how doing a little work will save a bundle of time later might entice some people to do their spring chores early. I get a lot of mail about the marketing that Proven Winners does, and I suppose the logical conclusion would be to use that to your advantage and simply let your customers know that you are "carrying the Proven Winners Spring Magic collection, as seen in /as recommended by P Allen Smith". If they wonder what "spring magic" is and look it up, they'll see all the wonderful plants they can buy in the spring--more than just pansies. http://www.pwcertified.com/consumer_advertising.cfm I had one more idea, but now I don't remember what it is. will post later if it comes to me. hope there was something useful in there!

Thanks for the recommendations and comments! Having a local Penzysl will save me a trip to Torrance, which I have NOT taken just because I try to avoid traffic to the L.A. area, and goodness knows there is traffic! Donna, from what I can find out, the address is 1274 University, in the Hillcrest area. One blog mentioned this address from reading the Penzys site, and it's said to be in the Hillcrest Colonnade center, taking over the old Blockbuster Video. That would make it the north side of the street, and even better, it will have a PARKING LOT in front of it--and a Cold Stone in the same center! Having a parking lot is a bonus because parking in Hillcrest needs a hunting license, just like going to SDSU with their parking problems! Smiles, Sooz

We offer first to family/friends. If nobody wants it, it goes to charity. My MIL was sure her house stuff was worth money. It wasn't. However, family members were happy to take the big furniture, so she didn't feel bad. Oddly, the various tschotskes DH and I couldn't stand, made her several hundred $$$ from an estate liquidator. Who knew, LOL? There is a wonderful charity here run by our city. They collect ONLY business clothes - cleaned, pressed, on hangers - suitable for job interviews. Low-income residents can go to their various training classes, which include what to do/not to do on job interviews and how to properly fill out job applications. For those attendees who don't have nice clothes for interviews, the charity allows them to pick two outfits for free. When my DH and I retired, we brought them enough to fill an 8' clothes rack. My MIL just passed away and I realized many of her clothes also qualified as "interview ready". DH and I cleaned out our closets again. His was clothes that had gotten too small or shrunk (he's fond of 100% cotton and some of that stuff shrinks more than others). I had hung on to some of my favorite work clothes, including some designer stuff, but finally decided after five years of retirement it was time to pass them along. So there went another 8' clothes rack out of the house last week! We also sorted through our books. We have around 2-4,000 books at any given time. Out went a load of those yesterday to the local library for their monthly sales. But the core of our collections remain: my art books, his hobby reference books, and the fiction novels we deem worth keeping and re-reading. Of these, only the art books are worth anything, and only to collectors. After I sorted through my art books we asked a couple of friends if they were interested in any that we planned to get rid of. They took two paper bags full. They were happy and so were we! Our collection is valuable only to us, especially since much of it is out of print. I used to give very elaborate dinner parties in the '70's. I had six different sets of interchangeable dinnerware and handmade bronze flatware, with lots of serving pieces collected from various places. Entertaining has changed and nobody does this stuff any longer. The main part of the dinnerware was a classic Mikasa bone china with an embossed gold rim, in a service for 12. None of my Millennial friends was interested in it, but fortunately one of our younger Boomer friends was complaining about her grandmother's soft-paste china. Such patterns can't go through the DW so she had to hand-wash it, so as a working mother (she was the breadwinner, in fact) it was too time-consuming to use often. She was familiar with our china and said she would be thrilled to have it. Made her ecstatic, and opened up space for new plain china for us. Yes, I still have the bronze flatware. Nobody else wants it, like silver it has to be kept polished or in bluecloth. Doesn't take up much room in a drawer. Oddly, one of the modestly valuable things I own might someday be thrown out by some relative who doesn't realize what they are. Back in the psychedelic '60's when impresario Bill Graham presented unknown local bands at the Winterland ballroom in San Francisco, for publicity they did not only posters, but fliers and postcards. I have half a dozen pristine, unused postcards of concerts listing Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Cream, Moody Blues, Blue Oyster Cult, etc., stuffed in a box in the garage.