Nurseries Continue to Wilt : Retailing: Drought, recession and stiff competition from home discount centers mean lean times for the Valley’s gardening industry.

Now that the six-year statewide drought is history, one would expect a greener year for the area’s nurseries, sod farms and landscapers.

And in fact, some homeowners have cautiously begun to indulge in the springtime rite of laying flower beds, potting plants and tending trees. That’s welcome relief for businesses that sell plants and landscaping services in the San Fernando Valley area, which have seen their sales decline from 10% to more than 50% during the past few years.

“Business is definitely back on the incline,” said Mike Connell, general manager at Green Thumb/Arrow Nursery and Hardware in Canoga Park, where sales fell 10% during the last year of the drought. Customers lately have been buying the types of colorful flowers--geraniums, marigolds and impatiens--that they previously shied away from. “You can see the smiles on people’s faces now because they’re out there planting.”

But the local plant industry isn’t out of the woods yet, and by some accounts it’s just as dry as when the drought was in full swing. Southern California’s lingering recession and a sluggish housing market continue to dampen plant sales. So even though the drought is over, nurseries and other plant-related businesses won’t see a complete recovery this year.

“As long as the housing industry is off, our industry will not fully recover,” said Mickey Strauss, president of American Wholesale Nurseries in Simi Valley and Newhall.

In a sign of the times, the California Assn. of Nurserymen, a Sacramento-based trade group, has seen the number of its member firms plunge 20% since 1990, to 863.

The decline reflects an industrywide consolidation, as struggling independent nurseries close their doors or sell out to large chains, said Ross Hutchings, an association spokesman. In addition to the recession and the drought, he said, small nurseries have also been hard hit by growing competition from mass merchants such as Home Depot, Wal-Mart and Kmart, which are more aggressively marketing nursery items.

Michael Kunce, president of Armstrong Garden Centers Inc., a Glendora-based chain with stores in Glendale, Northridge and Sherman Oaks, said that in the past few years he has been contacted by about 60 independent nurseries asking if he’d be interested in buying them out. But Kunce said he isn’t risking an expansion right now. “The mortality rate is very high among garden centers.”

Yet when Gov. Wilson declared the drought officially over, hopes rose in the industry. And indeed, a buying euphoria surfaced in March and April and many nurseries had record sales during those months.

But sales have since flattened--a reflection, Hutchings believes, of continuing concern over the economy, particularly in Southern California, which has been battered by aerospace industry layoffs.

At Chatsworth Garden Nursery, owner Randy Mineo said, “We’re lucky we’re alive today.”

In business since 1979, Mineo said his sales have fallen 25% over the past three years. To survive, he has cut his payroll by about one-third and reduced prices to compete with the mass merchants. His sales have rebounded since the winter rains ended.

Many nursery owners such as Mineo say that plants and trees that require relatively little water--such as bougainvillea and citrus trees--are still big sellers. Ground cover plants are also popular as alternatives to lawns which require more water.

Still, Mineo worries that independent nurseries such as his are “a dying breed.”

Other independent nursery owners share his concern. Gary Saito, owner of Valley Wholesale Nursery in Pacoima, said his sales have plunged 60% to 70% over the past few years. Saito has been in the nursery business for 30 years, and at the current site for 14 years. He once had seven employees; now he has just one full-time and a part-time worker.

“Nurseries got through the Depression. They got through the early ‘70s when there were massive aerospace layoffs in the Valley. But this was a double whammy, with the drought and the economy.” Now, said Saito, “I’m just trying to keep my gates open.”

Hugh Palmer, owner of Palmer’s Nursery in North Hollywood, said his business has slowed along with the recent move by Lockheed Corp. out of Burbank and the closing of the General Motors plant in Van Nuys. His sales are now half of what they were four years ago, and he expects a further decline this year.

“I have quite a few people that have come in and they can’t buy much because their unemployment check doesn’t go that far,” he said.

Palmer said he survives because he owns the property--it’s been in his family since 1948--and his overhead is low. He keeps just one part-time worker and has only 180 rosebushes in stock, compared to 1,500 several years ago.

If there’s hope to be had, it’s in customers such as Valerie and Gordon Scott, who visited Chatsworth Garden Nursery on a recent weekday morning with their landscaper, Roger Rutherford of Westlake Village. Landscapers are particularly sensitive to swings in the housing market, and home sales and new construction have been in the doldrums for three years.

Even though the Scotts have owned their house in the Mountain View Estates development in Calabasas for two years, they delayed landscaping the back yard because of the drought. As soon as the drought ended, they called Rutherford.

With Rutherford’s help, the Scotts have been putting in sequoia trees, bushes and annual flowers, and they’re building a larger pool. It’s Rutherford’s third project in Mountain View Estates and he’s hoping that word-of-mouth will produce more leads.

Three years ago, Rutherford recalled, he might get four calls a day from prospective customers. “Then I went for months without getting any calls,” he said. “I’d have to go out and shake the bushes for business.”

Even though the drought is over, Rutherford said, many homeowners still prefer hardy bushes and plants such as colorful escalonia shrubs that need little water because they simply don’t want to spend extra money on plants that require more upkeep.

Jeff Brown, president of NV Landscape Inc. in Santa Clarita, said his firm has weathered the industry downturn by specializing in renovations and maintenance work, rather than landscaping new homes. Although routine gardening jobs aren’t as profitable as doing major plantings, and his phone isn’t ringing off the hook, Brown said, NV’s sales are running about 10% above last year’s.

“I don’t have four months’ backlog of work like in previous years,” he said. “But I’m busy. We’re not starving.”

At Boething Treeland Farms Inc. in Woodland Hills the weekend crowds in the past month have been bigger than in years, said owner John Boething. Native varieties such as Monterey pines, sequoias and California sycamores are selling well. Still, he’s cautious about predicting a big upturn in sales any time soon.

Boething has 500 employees and eight farms throughout the state. After 41 years in business, he said, this is the worst downturn he’s ever seen. His sales--90% of which are wholesale--have fallen 20%, and prices are down by the same percentage.

Boething said he gets along by keeping overhead low and staying free of debt. But he expects the industry will continue to feel pain because wholesalers are saddled with so much excess inventory they’ve been dumping stock at rock bottom prices. “It grows and it costs money to maintain it,” he said. “You can’t just store it like bottles of whiskey or shoes.”

Long-suffering sod farmers also worry that a rebound isn’t imminent.

At Valley Sod Farm Inc. in Sepulveda, sales have plunged 35% over the past three years. When the winter rains put an end to the drought, owner Bud vom Cleff leased additional land in the area, hoping for an upturn in business. It didn’t happen. On a normal day a few years ago, Valley Sod would ship out about a dozen truck-and-trailer loads of grass a day. Lately, only two loads a day go out.

Valley Sod has plenty of company. Vom Cleff said some of his competitors are so desperate for sales that they’ve been shipping sod as far away as Las Vegas.

“It’s just churning inventory,” he said. “The trucking there is eating up the profit.”

In his 27 years in business, Vom Cleff said, he has always been an optimist. But now he frets, “I’ve seen it down a few years, then it comes back. This is different.

“I think the good days are over.”