Lang's Garden Market
This month I reached out to Lang’s Garden Center in Lynwood, NJ and learned about their unique market and how it affects their planter business.
For over 40 years Lang’s has been a family owned operation with a superb reputation. Visit langsgarden.com and take a peek at their beautiful instagram.
From the owner Stephanie:
At Lang’s we specialize in designing and installing custom planters. We have a team within our landscape division that installs onsite as well as a potting shop within the garden center. Our head designer, Malu, has been with Lang’s for over 20 years and works with our top clients. Malu realized that people wanted custom planter arrangements that they could easily and quickly swap out when the season changed.
A key aspect of our business: we reside in a second home market, so our clients tend to be weekend residents. To that point, they want their landscape and planters complete when they arrive, or what we call “resort ready”. For these clients, we recycle the large plastic grower’s pots we acquire from trees and shrubs and plant directly into these removable containers. We size them up with the customer’s planter so that they fit snug enough not be seen when inserted, but with a little wiggle room so they can be removed. Taking into account sunlight and water requirements, Malu starts with the “thriller”, the tallest part of the planter - sometimes annuals or perennials. Then she adds the “filler”, typically annuals with a lot of color. She finishes with the “spiller”, typically something green like mezoo or ivy.
When she finally inserts the temporary planter, she makes sure to have a few extra grower’s pots around, flipping them upside down in the planter to ensure the perfect height. We even like to have these custom inserts in our own storefront. They are front and center and they add a perfect seasonal pop of color.
I think it’s also interesting to note that we like to carry small amounts of many styles of planters. We have a customer base that prefer unique planters (which is why we love Anamese). They don’t want to match their neighbor, which is another reason why designing and installing custom planters are so important.
