Family-owned Business Finds Success in the Water Garden Market

Ulbrich’s Garden Center in New York changes with the times and takes education and training seriously.

By Alison Bour

Ulbrich's Garden Center operates as one of wester New York's largest garden centers.

Thomas R. Ulbrich, president and CEO

While the company sells trees, annuals, perennials, hanging baskets, houseplants, tropical varieties, nursery plants, tools and gifts, in the early 1990’s the center jumped at the chance to capitalize on the emerging water garden market, said Ulbrich, whose father initially opened the company.

“It really occurred out of necessity,” he said. “The retail garden market was beginning to experience saturation from additional garden centers and the arrival of big-box stores. We were looking for a niche — a differentiator — and water gardening fit that perfectly.”

The center now stocks the gamut of water garden wares: kits, pumps, filters, EPDM liner, aquatic plants, fish health products and pond care maintenance items as well as goldfish and koi.

Michael Rambach, general manager, joined the business in 2002 just after the center installed its third display garden. At that time, Ulbrich’s decided to eliminate its installation business. Even though the center enjoyed a solid maintenance customer base, Rambach said the expanding water gardening focus allowed the company to simplify operations rather than managing multiple landscape crews each day.

Ulbrich said another reason to eliminate the installation business was due to growing competition and an inability to properly staff that division of the company. In its place, Ulbrich became a wholesale supplier to local landscape businesses, including water garden installers. Now these installers buy complete kits from Ulbrich’s.

“Why compete against the hand that’s feeding you?” Rambach said about the center’s operational strategy.

The center sells pumps, liners and other do-it-yourself installation products, but local installers drive most of its install-product sales, Rambach said.

To reach water garden customers looking for plants, fish and pond care products, Ulbrich’s provides store coupons to installers for them to hand out after completing each project. When these customers enter the store for the first time, the store reported that people are amazed at the vast choices Ulbrich’s offers.

Rambach said the square footage devoted to water gardeners serves as proof of the center’s focus and commitment to this industry. Ulbrich’s dedicates up to four times the footprint to these products compared to its competitors.

One of Ulbrich's display ponds with aquatic plants

“We call ourselves a 7-11 garden center,” Rambach said. “Forty percent of our business is water gardening.”

Providing products without education is a disservice to customers as well as a bad business decision, Rambach said. If a customer finds a unique flowering plant online, he said, what good is it if that plant does not thrive in the local zone? What good is it if a brave do-it-yourselfer, which Rambach said includes truckers and doctors, installs a liner in the wrong landscape location and it fails?

In situations where customers arrive with incomplete measurements or dreams of raising koi in too-small ponds, Rambach said he is comfortable sending them home empty-handed. In the long run, it drives future sales, he said.

“I’d rather send them away than have them end up unhappy,” Rambach said.

Because he cannot single-handedly take care of every customer question or make every sale, Ulbrich relies on a specially trained staff to remain competitive and successful. This represents a staffing challenge, Ulbrich said.

“Water gardening isn’t difficult in itself when you look at a single project, but training a team member to deal with a myriad of possible equipment combinations and multiple variables can take some time,” Ulrich said. “It isn’t a simple, read-this-book-and-your-trained type of business. It requires hands-on experience to be proficient.”

Michael Rambach, general manager, discusses a products with fellow associate Wendy Kelley.

Ulbrich’s staff of three full-time employees and eight to 12 seasonal helpers includes specialists in water gardening who either own a ponds or possess significant industry experience. Rambach said he hires applicants with a strong retail background — some have more than 10 years — or already familiar with water gardens. He prefers both qualities, but he will settle for one or the other and adjust training as necessary.

The center’s formal training program focuses on a series of quizzes, Rambach said. Each employee begins with a baseline test. After on-the-job training, employees take a follow-up test to indentify strengths and weaknesses.

Ulbrich’s employees quickly learn that water garden sales require a unique approach because many of the hobby’s newcomers already own pools and aquariums and are used to meticulously maintaining them. Rambach and his staff must convince new water garden customers that, given time and a proper ecosystem balance, Mother Nature does most of the hard work within their prize ponds.

“It’s hard to teach them to be hands-off,” he said.

Rambach reports an upswing in pondless features.

“It’s the local trend because of the ability to walk away,” he said. Rain harvesting has not caught on yet, but it might, he added.

Ulbrich said the current economy and decreased discretionary income make this a tough time for water garden sales, but he predicts it will pick up. Meanwhile, Ulbrich’s faces the dip by tightly controlling inventory and relying more on just-in-time deliveries.

“We lose some potential buying discounts, but we control our cash flow,” Ulbrich said. “This is critical in down times.”

Being located in an area with a small-town atmosphere both helps and hinders business, Rambach said. The store enjoys a captive audience, but locals must travel outside to buy many necessities.

Rambach said the reason some customers remain loyal to Ulbrich’s lies in its family-owned roots. When he interviewed three companies in western New York while searching for his managerial position, Rambach asked all of them who represented their biggest competitor.

“They all said Ulbrich’s,” he said.

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Family-owned Business Finds Success in the Water Garden Market

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