The Coolest Thing Ever

OK, maybe not the absolute coolest thing ever in the history of all things, but it's close. I came across the EasyBloom Plant Sensor today, which can determine which plants will thrive in a specific spot in your yard. On top of that, it can diagnose ailing plants and bring them back to health. And, at the risk of sounding like an infomercial (sorry), there's even more! It also gives you access to plant information on 5,000-plus plants and allows you to create a custom library of your favorite plants.

It works like this: You plug the EasyBloom Plant Sensor into a USB port on your computer, which takes you to your My EasyBloom Dashboard page. Put the sensor into "Recommend" or "Monitor" mode. Then you place the sensor in the ground where you want to put a plant, or next to the plant you want to monitor. The device then gathers a "plant's eye view" of the location. The next day, plug the sensor into your USB port again, and the data is uploaded to the EasyBloom Web site, which then recommends plants or diagnoses problems, based on whether you have it in "Recommend" mode or "Monitor" mode.

Check out the EasyBloom video here.

Pumpkin Planters

I just came across the blog for San Francisco Bay-area Sloat Garden Center and wanted to share one of their neat posts. A local news station did a bit on using hollowed out pumpkins as planters for mums, cabbage and other fall plants and filmed it at one of Sloat's garden centers. Sloat made sure to post the video on the garden center's blog for anyone who might have missed it. You can check it out here.

Supporting A Good Cause = Good PR

I just got an e-mail from the frequent parker program I belong to at the local airport. The car park is working with Feeding America to host a canned food drive. For every can parkers drop off, they get a dollar off their parking stays (up to $3). Everyone who contributes is also entered into a drawing for the chance to win gas cards.

Maybe some garden centers are doing something like this? If you are, make sure you give your local newspapers and TV stations a call to let them know! They love these human interest kinds of stories, and you just might get some media coverage, while, of course, supporting a great cause.