I apologize, but this opportunity really, really deserves a yelling title.  You have a new market opportunity - and QVC has done the research for you.

According to Matt's article on gardens and home values property owners can see as much as a £5,000 increase in value of their home if their garden is looking good.  The same also represents a potential £600 annual rent increase - year after year.

That's real money, folks.  And you're the ones to deliver.

Whether you're a landscaper or a garden retail centre with a landscaping service, you need to be doing deals with estate agents in your area.  Now.  In fact, any service that has skin in the game that will win from an increased property value will want you in their doors and on their team.

Here's how it works.

You do a recce in the area and figure out which homes are for sale or rent that need garden improvements.  You take photos - or take the estate agents' photos - and, armed with the QVC data (and Matt's article, of course), you go into those estate agents' and others' offices and explain exactly why you're there, what you can do for them and why they want you on their team.

You're there to make them money.  (You too, of course, but for them that's beside the point.)

What's most important is that this isn't a one-off.  What you're looking for is a long-term relationship that benefits you and their customers.  You're adding value - literally and figuratively - to their offer.  And their coffers.  (Yours too.)

This, by the way, is exactly what I write about in my Executive Field Guides in identifying how to create and move on innovation strategy.  It's seeing something that relates but is not yours - then making it yours and making it profitable.  It's a serious win and it doesn't cost you a thing.

Get smart and move on this one.  It's rare that you get such direct and quotable marketing data from an outside entity in support of your value proposition.  You really don't want to waste the opportunity.

And you really don't want me yelling at you again.

As promised, I'm keeping you apprised.  My March Thinking Executive Newsletter is up as is a new post on my Thinking Executive Blog.

This time in the Newsletter I'm taking on HR - and the fact that, in most cases, they are being under-utilized to the great detriment in your organization.  That's because they're seen as tactical rather than strategic - by executives and HR, itself.  Very, very bad.

On the blog, I've got Toyota and the unnecessary damage they did as a result of their lack of timeliness.  It really didn't have to happen that way.  As well, I've got a new post on innovation and risk discussing a start-up called "The Impossible Project."  It's an excellent story.

I hope it helps - and, as always, feel free to write with comments or questions.  It's always a pleasure to hear from you.

When BBC America first started broadcasting in the States, I became an instant addict.  Sure, I had to put up with the commercials - which were from a really, really cheesy bunch of advertisers - but, hey, I got to see all sorts of shows that I had become familiar with on my trips to your country.

Then there came the moment.  I saw Ground Force and became, I admit, an Alan Titchmarsh groupie.

You may sneer or sigh, but I've never made any bones about this.  In fact, one of the promises - not yet kept but I live in hope - that was made to me by the lovely folks at Horticulture Week is that one day I'll get to meet Mr. Titchmarsh.

Before then, I wasn't a gardening type.  It wasn't even on the radar - mostly because I figured that you could only succeed if you were the proverbial green-fingered person, which I wasn't.  But I, like so many other Titchmarsh viewers, became convinced that I, too, could grow more and different than I had previously been willing to try.  I could be creative.  I could do things.  And I could even do them in my Victorian flat on top of a hill in San Francisco with a great view of the Bay but no garden attached. 

And I did.  Because I was introduced to container gardening in one of the Ground Force programs.

When I first started looking into the possibilities, there really weren't many.  Garden Centers were geared toward gardens.  There were house plants, of course, but when I started describing the kinds of things I had seen and wanted to do, I got a lot of wide-eyed looks that turned to speculation and became excitement on the part of the retailers.

Well today, years later, on reading an article in the New York Times about container gardening, I knew I had done my part to create an industry success.  The container gardening market in the United States is now worth one billion dollars a year - yes billion with a 'b' - with more than eighteen million households across the country somehow being involved.

You can do the same.  With the advent and excitement attached to grow-your-own, the focus on the environment, a much greater interest in food freshness and the lack of allotments - from flowers to cauliflowers, this is a market that needs to be exploited to the max.

For my part, while I know that I helped catalyze the industry in the States - and hopefully get you to focus even more closely on the possibilities - I am more than happy to give credit where it's due.  To Alan Titchmarsh.  Still my hero.

It was only a matter of time.  China is coming to the blueberry market.  And organics - sort of.  I think.  It depends.

On the blueberry side, that's a done deal.  The purchase of Changbai Eco Beverage by China Organic Agriculture Inc. means that they're in the game.  They've bought a company that is a leader in the blueberry sector - from R&D to consumer-friendly products like blueberry drinks.

On the organics side of the deal, that may be a bit more of a question.  In the press release, it states that Changbai produces "organically friendly products" which may be in line with or far, far away from what the Soil Association and others define as "organic."

On your side of the deal, what's important is to know that China is coming.  They've got an internal market that doesn't quit, of course - but they are an always outward-looking country.  They're looking for every other market they can get into.

That means yours.

Right now it's blueberries.  Who knows what's next?  

Whatever it is, start getting prepared now.  Because the given is that they're figuring out who, how and when.

The answer is:  You get there first.  Protect your own markets and grow them into new arenas.  Take on new competitors before they start taking the field.

You may not take the whole field - but you can definitely keep and grow your part of it.

You have every reason to ask.  Why am I writing a post about the Nocton Dairy Consortium - clearly a non-horticultural concern - in a horticulture industry blog?

It's not because of the decision to do factory farming in dairy.  (I have my own opinions about that - which are not very positive, to say the least - but that's a discussion for another day.)

What's worth discussing is what the Consortium is now doing by having canceled its community meeting and, instead, saying that they are only willing to meet with individuals from the community individually.

Frankly, that stinks.  It's underhanded and specifically designed to ensure that the community - not the vegans or other protest groups, but the community - is unable to make its own argument as a whole.

There will be no way for community members to make any concerted arguments.  Not only are the meetings, once again, individual, but there are no media allowed.

Whatever opportunity the community might have had to impact the planning process - which is, after all, what these meetings are supposed to be about - has been taken away.  The Consortium are cheaters.  They have structurally disempowered the community that they will be moving into (because, for them, this becomes a money-driven foregone conclusion) and, clearly, could care less about the impact that they are having on the quality of life of their "neighbors."

And where did the Consortium members learn this little maneuver?  Easy.  It's the one that has been used consistently on the industry - agriculture and horticulture - for years.

It's the reason that the horticulture industry's need for government-supported applied R&D has been ignored for so long.  It's the reason that the supermarket ombudsman is still under "consultation" rather than being implemented as recommended...for the past ten years.

This is the standard "divide and conquer" mechanism that has been used - but, unfortunately also adopted - within the horticulture sector.

I feel very sorry for the people who will be living in the vicinity of the factory dairy farm.  This is a business model used commonly in the States and, having driven by one of the largest in California and having to nearly hold my breath for miles because of the stench, I know what they're in for.

If they can get their act together and force the planning commission to have an open meeting - even if only restricted to local inhabitants - they will have a much better chance of winning.

For the horticulture sector, use this as a reminder and a cautionary tale.  Create a voice.  A single, loud voice - and make sure that whoever needs to hear what you have to say, hears it.  Loud and clear.