Successful landscape contractors have known for years that one of the most effective ways to generate customer loyalty is to meet, if not exceed, customer expectations. Being responsive, being consistent, and delivering a high quality end product gets their attention and repeat business. Gary Mangum, CLP, understood the concept when his parents operated an interior landscape and nursery business in Maryland. He carried that concept through after he and partner Mike McCarthy purchased Bell Nursery from the Mangum family in 1994. At the time, the business generated $1 million in sales annually. Less than 10 years later, the wholesale nursery, with headquarters in Burtonsville, Maryland, has annual sales revenue of approximately $30 million.

“One of our first acts after buying the nursery was to visit as many prospective customers as we could,” relates Mangum, who is also a partner in Premier Plantscapes, Inc., in Burtonsville. “We visited area garden centers and landscape contractors to determine what their needs were and how we could best meet them.” As the company grew, it took on more customers and broadened its niche to include chain outlets such as Costco and Home Depot. Throughout, Mangum says he and his partner truly felt (and still feel today) that a company is only as good as its last contact with a customer. He puts it even more succinctly on the Bell Nursery Web site, where he states, “If we treat each delivery opportunity as though it’s our first and last chance with a particular customer, we will always be successful.”

If growth is an indicator, Bell Nursery has been a success by any standard. In 1994, the nursery operated on four acres; today, with a network of associate growers on Maryland’s Eastern shore, it operates 33 acres under glass. As part of this growth, the nursery has added three major greenhouse ranges and has made additional investments in state-of-the-art watering technology, automated hanging basket systems, and mechanized tray filling and transplant systems. The new technologies include an “ebb and flow” bench system that provides total water nutrient recovery.

Not surprisingly, the driving force behind this growth and change is the customer, and one of the company’s biggest customers today is Home Depot. Bell Nursery is a supplier to 54 Home Depot locations from Delaware to Fredericksburg, Virginia, and it has become an active participant in helping the stores become garden center destinations.

Mangum explains, “Five years ago, Mike and I presented Home Depot with the idea that we put our employees in their stores to help service, maintain, and merchandise plant material. We learned from our experience in the interior landscaping business that to be a successful supplier requires more than selling or leasing plant material, as the case may be. It requires having someone with expertise inspecting it, watering it, and making sure the material is well presented overall.”