Plant video contest on YouTube

Do you have some video that promotes the appreciation and understanding of plant? Put it on YouTube and you might make some money on it.

Chlorofilms is the organization behind the contest and is looking to bring attention back to plants and flowers.

ChloroFilms is a nonprofit project started by Dr. Daniel Cosgrove at Penn State University with initial grant support from the Education Foundation of the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB). Additional support comes from the Botanical Society of America and the Canadian Botanical Association.

Check out the contest rules and ideas for videos.

The thirst for online knowledge

I was on my microblog Twitter last week looking around for news on poinsettia sales, Christmas plant sales, anything. I searched for 'poinsettia' and I found quite a few recipes for the drink (champagne and cranberry juice, had no idea), but not much news on plant sales.

So I asked my Twitter followers, "Any gardeners out there following your favorite garden center's Twitter feed? Which ones? If not, would you like to, if it was offered?" Here are three responses I got:

have not found any. It would be great to find some

I would, if they tweeted. I don't think any of mine are. I'm in Wilmington, NC.

Sure, I would love to see garden center feeds!

We're the plant experts, and there are gardeners out there starved for information. Growers and retailers - give them what they're looking for!

I propose a New Year's Resolution. Step outside your comfort zone. Take a step towards your customers. Go to Twitter.com, click on 'Find People' at the top of the page, and search for jreck, gardenofwords and treesandshrubs. These are the users who commented above, and they have a thirst for knowledge about gardening. There are tons of other gardeners on Twitter, looking to learn more about plants and flowers. How about you set up an account and give them a tip of the week?

If you're on Twitter, let me know. I want to follow you. I'm stambascio. Follow me!

Update: Here's an article on how Ford, Dunkin' Donuts and Comcast are using Twitter corporately to communicate on a more personal level.

The new GreenhouseGrower.com is live!

It's finally here - the redesigned GreenhouseGrower.com. We've added a lot of new features that we're excited about and hope will help you find and share content from the magazine. Check out the home page. When news happens, this is where you'll find it.

First off, full content! Our online database is now complete - check out our Top 100 Growers report for 2008 here. And our Medal Of Excellence awards here.

A other few features that I'm really psyched about are comments and the share function. You can now comment on every article we post, even anonymously, if you'd like. Like this one on how to use social media.

And share - the new site makes it easy to post articles you're interested in to sites like Facebook and Digg. I'm a Facebook junkie as of late, so this is pretty exciting for me.

If you get a second, check out the new site, and keep checking in. Lots more features are on the way.

Spring has sprung at Lowe's

There's something big going on over at Lowe's Web site. A new section called Welcome Back Spring takes the visitor to a fictional town called Sunnyville, where we meet neighbors who are all about outdoor living.

The Web animation begins with a sweeping look at flowers blooming, koi swimming and burgers sizzling on the grill.

Moe is the neighborhood guy obsessed with his lawn. Mike is the party animal, a bear who knows everything about patio furniture. And Iris is the local gardener. Each character shares tips about their area of expertise. Iris shares when and what to plant based on a planting Zone chart, as well as suggestions on gardening tools.

Even though this is the same information packaged in a slightly different way, I think this is so much more effective marketing than ad circulars. It's a story...and it's online. I can relate to these people and I feel like I'm hearing something from a friend. And a bear! A bear who knows everything about outdoor entertaining. If you make me laugh, I'm probably a customer for life.