Green Thumbs : Boomers Dig Into Gardening : Gardening is a hobby offering way to aid environment, push family activity on cheap or chic.

When Chicago ad executive Walter Radloff built a house not long ago, he made sure the lot was on the west side of the street. He wanted his new garden to catch the late afternoon sun.

Like the French doors and cottage-like garage, a garden was a top priority for the Radloffs, who spend more time at home now that they have a 10-month-old son.

Gardening is a new undertaking for Radloff. Aside from a “little watering and sweeping,” he had never tended a garden. He even stumbles trying to recall the names of his new plants. But now, said his wife, an accountant, “we practically live out there.”

Gardening is blossoming across the country as baby boomers discover the stay-at-home hobby. It’s inexpensive (or fashionably extravagant), environmentally correct--and, say real estate brokers, it can increase the resale value of your house.

The nation’s plant purveyors couldn’t be happier. Last year, industry sales sprouted 6.4% to $22.13 billion after shooting up 27% the previous year to $20.8 billion, reports the National Gardening Assn., based in Burlington, Vt. Sales of vegetable-related gardening products jumped 19% to $1.65 billion in 1991.

Baby boomers haven’t had to abandon their trendy tastes either, they just grow their favorite variety of Italian lettuce themselves. Sales of culinary herbs--another yuppie favorite--doubled industrywide in 1991 to $161 million, said the gardening association. Affluent gardeners don’t even have to get too much dirt under their fingernails. Using bedding plants rather than seeds simplifies and speeds up the planting process. Much like cooking from prepared mixes, “there’s no chance of failure,” said Bruce Butterfield, the association’s research director.

At White Flower Farm, a gardening catalogue company in Litchfield, Conn., business is “definitely beginning to build,” said Steve Frowine, a horticulturist. Yuppie gardeners want unusual, high-quality plants, he said, and White Flower Farms offers such prizes as a new daylily called Mallard in a “rich and strong” shade of red for $12.95.

Also popular are certain European and Asian vegetables such as bok choy, for use in low-salt, low-cholesterol meals, Frowine said. “It’s obsessive,” he added. “The boomers just keep acquiring things and buying the best.”

Even giant Sears, Roebuck & Co., which can’t seem to get sales to bloom elsewhere in its merchandising group, is cultivating record sales of lawn and garden products. They jumped 9.5% in 1991 and 8.5% in 1990, and Bill Walker, a buyer of nonpower lawn and garden products for Sears, predicted more of the same.

Pricey gardening accessories are also big sellers. At Smith & Hawken, a Mill Valley, Calif., mail order company, consumers are buying clothes for playing in the dirt. Popular items include baggy pants with insertable knee pads and seven roomy pockets for tools ($39), as well as plastic clogs with removable rubber insoles ($34 a pair).

Smith & Hawken says it can’t keep enough of its hand tools--many of them imported from England--on the shelves. Also popular with environmentally conscious customers is its composter line and “beneficial bug lure.” Teak benches for the garden--made from plantation wood so they won’t deplete the rain forest--are selling well despite price tags that range from $500 to $2,000. “They’re expensive,” the spokeswoman said, “but people are investing in their gardens.”

White Flower Farm has increased the variety of tools it offers to meet growing demand. Hot sellers include “heavy-duty” trowels, which go for $19.95, and hand pruners, for $38.50, as well as a long-handled, foot-powered bulb planter with a stainless-steel blade for $72.50. And because many of the company’s customers are getting older, Frowine notes, stools that you can invert to kneel on are “real popular.” They cost $54.95.

Another chic item: cans of Bag Balm. That’s the “sticky, funny smelling stuff” farmers use to keep cows’ udders from chafing, but gardeners have adopted it for their “overworked” hands, Frowine said.

Parents are also snapping up gardening paraphernalia for their children. Gardener’s Supply Co., a mail-order concern in Burlington, Vt., has experienced “very steady sales growth” since it opened in 1983, said spokesman Paul Conrad. But sales of child-size products like its $29 wheelbarrow and $24.95 hoe, rake and shovel set surged in 1991, he said.

“Gardening is a great family activity,” Conrad said, “and a great antidote to Saturday morning cartoons.” He added that Gardener’s Supply fields a steady string of requests for its “Kids and Compost--a Family Activity Guide.”

Baby boomers also pick up children’s gardening products from Nature Co., a Berkeley, Calif., tool and gift company. Rob Forbes, vice president, marketing, said one hot seller is a $14.95 garden set that includes fast-growing seeds, a mini-tool set and instructions on how to grow the seeds around a tepee-like structure.

Part of gardening’s appeal is that it allows baby boomers to demonstrate how environmentally sensitive they are. Hot-selling items at Frank’s Nursery & Crafts, the nation’s largest lawn-and-garden retailer, include organic pesticides and bark mulches, which help conserve water and keep weeds under control, said a spokeswoman for the General Host Corp. unit.

Mike McGrath, editor of Organic Gardening magazine, said people are trying to wean themselves from garden chemicals because they have become “very uncool.” Like smokers who no longer light up indoors, he says, chemical users will spray only by night. “People are picking up organic gardening because it’s time to do it,” he said.

Bricker’s Organic Farm in Augusta, Ga., has seen a “noticeable increase” in business in the past two years, said founder Bill Bricker. Its flagship product: Kricket Krap, a natural fertilizer made from cricket manure. The painted four-pound jars sell like hot cakes for $6.95 apiece through Bricker’s mail-order service. “After they have a laugh, they come back for more,” says Bricker.

Ringer Corp., a Minneapolis maker of natural lawn and garden products, is selling more and more natural fertilizers, pesticides and compost makers, which speed up the composting process. A spokesman says the company’s sales have grown more than 50% over the past five years. “Some people say this is a fad,” he said, “but it’s here to stay.”

Publishers are taking advantage of the growing interest in gardening. A spokesman for Meredith Corp. said the Des Moines media company’s Country Home magazine just spun off the first issue of Country Home Country Gardens. The company, which publishes Better Homes & Gardens, also issued a special-interest magazine called Garden Ideas and Outdoor Living this year.

The recession is also contributing to the gardening trend. “A bad economy generally helps us,” said Jim DeLash, direct marketing manager at Burpee Seed Co., Warminster, Pa., where flower seed sales are climbing. “The products people buy from us aren’t high-money purchases,” he said. “You’re likely to cut back on buying a VCR or a new car, but you won’t eliminate gardening.”

The low price tag has attracted Rohm Gustafson to gardening. The 31 year old recently graduated from the University of Washington with two liberal arts degrees but no job offers. A temporary clerical worker now, Gustafson keeps to a tight budget. “Going out to cheaper restaurants and a haircut from time to time are my only big-ticket activities,” he said.

Gustafson rents a 400-square-foot garden plot from the P-Patch Program, a community garden service sponsored by Seattle’s Department of Housing and Human Services. Gustafson figures he spends about $80 each year for the plot and maintenance. “It’s sort of gardening zen; it makes me feel better,” he said, and it puts some food on his table.

With the weak economy keeping more people at home, some consumers also see gardening as a low-cost way to make their surroundings more attractive.

Linda Brown, a Chicago postal carrier, spruced up her neighborhood with red, yellow and white flowering plants. Brown says she pinches pennies when it comes to entertainment and new clothes. But she splurges at Fertile Delta, a local nursery, where she is a regular during her lunch hour. “Why buy a new dress if you can buy a plant?” she asked.

Reprinted with permission of Wall Street Journal. Copyright, 1992. Dow Jones & Co. Inc., All rights reserved.