Kennedy’s Country Gardens is located in the seaside town of Scituate, about halfway between Boston and Plymouth in eastern Massachusetts. The fourand-a-half-acre garden center is on a coastal road that was once the only route from Boston to the popular beaches of Cape Cod. Although many of the other businesses along Route 3A — including most of Kennedy’s gardencenter competitors — close down at the end of the summer season, Kennedy’s stays open. Among the keys to the company’s singular year-round success are a busy calendar of events that keeps shopper traffic steady month after month and a strong emphasis on Christmas — both outdoors in its cut-tree and wreaths departments, and indoors in its greenhouses and gift store.

Chris Kennedy, the company’s owner, believes that chief among Kennedy’s attractions at Christmastime is its large selection of natural trees and wreaths. He notes that while many retailers of cut trees order them in bulk from Canada (“Can you send me 200 trees?”), Kennedy’s offers a much more diverse variety of evergreens — some from as far away as Oregon and some from as nearby as western Massachusetts. Kennedy and his staff “hand select” many of the 600 to 1,000 cut trees that Kennedy’s sells each holiday season, which retail up to $200 each.

The company’s approach to tree merchandising is also unique. Rather than leaning his trees up against a fence, Kennedy’s stakes rows of poles and ties a tree to each one, so shoppers can walk around each tree as they search for the one they want to take home. The company offers another special service that Kennedy credits with boosting tree sales. “We will put a tree stand on your tree, wrap the tree in netting and strap it to your car. Many of our customers are women, and we make it easy for them to buy their trees by themselves. All the husband has to do is bring the tree from the car into the living room and stand it up. We call this our ‘Marriage Saver’ service.”

Many of Kennedy’s cut-tree customers continue their Christmas-décor shopping at Kennedy’s gift shop, which offers artificial trees and wreaths, lights, ornaments, figurines, Christmas cards and other décor and holiday-themed gift items. Valerie Flynn, gift buyer for Kennedy’s, reports that the Christmas season begins unofficially with a storewide Columbus Day sale. Although the spring planting season is the busiest time of the year for Kennedy’s — as it is for most garden centers — the two busiest Christmas weekends rival the busiest spring weekend at the company, according to Kennedy.

Indoors, says Flynn, ornaments tend to be the best sellers. She notes that ornaments that reflect the area’s coastal identity — styles with seashell motifs, for example — always sell particularly well. Although cut trees and wreaths — including custom-decorated wreaths — far outsell artificial varieties, smaller artificial trees — two-footers and four-and-a-half-footers — sold particularly well in 2007. Flynn explains that these sizes are popular with older customers who are looking for trees that are easy to work with and easy to store.

Flynn does most of her buying at the AmericasMart*Atlanta winter gift show and cites Sullivans, Raz Imports, GKI/Bethlehem Lighting and Design Design as major suppliers for Kennedy’s Christmas department.

Events Spark Interest
Kennedy’s Country Gardens was founded in 1960, when Alexander Kennedy bought the nursery — which then had only one small building heated by a potbellied stove — for his grandson, Bob (Chris’s father), who had just graduated from The Stockbridge School of Agriculture at the University of Massachusetts. A generation later, Chris Kennedy learned the business “the hard way” — weeding, loading up cars and working with the company’s landscaping crew. Later, he majored in landscape contracting and horticulture at Pennsylvania State University. In 1994, Chris Kennedy rejoined the business, which he now manages. His dad, Bob, still works part-time for the company.

From its earliest days, Kennedy’s has been involved with the local community. Events at the store include WinterFest in February, which features sales, lectures, children’s events and charity raffles. Other annual events include ArtFest, which showcases work from local artists; a Fall Festival, which is held on Columbus Day Weekend; Earth Week; and an annual Tent Sale. Kennedy notes that food is an important part of all events, with a variety of snacks, delicacies and desserts provided by local restaurants and caterers.

Kennedy’s gardening experts are not only renowned locally but nationally. Paul Parent, the store’s manager in the 1970s and 1980s, launched a gardening show on local radio that has since been syndicated all over the country and has transformed Parent into one of the country’s most well-known gardening experts.

Because of Kennedy’s long history in Scituate, the company is often a part of community charity events, says Kennedy, who reports that Kennedy’s Country Gardens gift certificates are a favorite prize at a number of local charity events.

Kennedy says that the company has always met the challenges of the ever-changing market with higher-quality products and personal service, and he predicts that Kennedy’s will continue to evolve and succeed as it moves toward its 50th anniversary in the business. //