Meet HostasDirect, Inc.
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Chris Alexander
Chris has been working for
HostasDirect since its inception
as he lives across the street
from me. Chris just graduated
with a double major in chemistry
and business from Illinois
Wesleyan. We missed him last
summer when he studied in
Australia. Chris is hoping to
start law school soon to become
a patent attorney. Chris has
been involved with our computer
operations, photography, retail
sales, customer service, and
engineering.
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Welcome to hosta lovers around the
globe!
This is my longest newsletter ever!
I try to keep everything newsworthy,
succinct, candid, and informal. I
hope you enjoy the exclusive deals
and information!
We've had website visitors from 72
countries on 5 continents - hostas
are the friendship plant! Also note
that we recently took numerous
pictures and videos of hundreds of
hostas! We are currently adding
them to the
HostaSearch™ database as fast as
we can. Check back in a few days!
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MN Retail Site Open By Popular
Demand!
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Open through Saturday, August 9,
2008
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Thursday: 3 PM to 6 PM
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Saturday: 10 AM to 3 PM
View more information...
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Free hostas and big sales!
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Get a
free hosta of your choice with
your next order! Choose from:
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Cascades
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Paradigm
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Sieboldiana Elegans
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Abiqua Drinking Gourd
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Striptease
- Sagae
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This deal is in addition to our
normal
free hostas with every $50
spent. Simply
click this link, add the hosta
to your cart, and start shopping!
While supplies last - first come
first served! This sale is only
guaranteed to last through July 23,
2008.
ALSO SAVE:
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Discounted prices only $5.95 !!!
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We are now offering beautiful, more
common, and less expensive hostas at
lower prices. We need to sell in
large volumes to make up the
difference in profit, so please tell
your friends! These beautiful Best
Value TC hostas are guaranteed to be
disease-free.
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New At HostasDirect, Inc.
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The Hosta Blog |
We have started a blog located at
www.HostasDirect.com/blog. You
can even subscribe to our blog via
an RSS feed to keep up to date if
you like. We hope this will be
another good way to communicate with
hosta lovers!
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New hosta varieties |
We have added 60
new varieties this year, many of
those in the past few weeks.
Unfortunately, some of these we had
on our web site early in the spring
but then we received a surprise
backorder by some from our suppliers
and had to remove them. These
hostas are all in stock now. We are
testing some to see how the demand
is before we order in large
quantities so this may be the last
time you see certain varieties.
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Beautiful, hand-made Hosta
Impressions!! (buy
now!) |
Two local women are selling their
beautiful hosta cement artwork
through our company. Each piece is
custom made by imprinting a hosta
leaf into cement and hand-painting
the leaf. They are painted with an
attempt to match the hosta with a
water and sun-resistant paint.
These Hosta Impressions can be used
as garden art, bird baths, table
centerpieces, or can be filled with
water for floating candle holders.
However, since each piece is unique
you must hurry to claim your
favorite before it's gone!
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New Technological Innovations
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New packing slips make it
easier to see the status of your
order and sort your Best Value
TC hostas from your Divisions
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Advanced order management
in our order administration area
now tracks the status of each
hosta in your order. This
information will print out on
your packing slip to track past
backorders and credits.
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New internal reports
allow us to serve you
better and faster
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Website content overhaul:
We recently revised our entire
set of website content. Check
out the new drop-down menus at
the top of the page! There is
TONS of hosta info!
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Research and development
on how we grow our plants
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New perpetual inventory system
allows us to track products at
all of our locations
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Other innovations cannot
be disclosed for competitive
reasons. Keep watching!
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Additional Hosta FAQ |
We've written additional frequently
asked questions and posted them on
our website. Please check them out!
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More Educational Video Streams
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We will have new video streams and
slide presentations coming your way
soon, including:
- An introduction to our
company and hostas and how we
are different from other
- Hostas in 3 dimensions -
videos of the plants we sell
- Common questions about
hostas
- How we package our plants -
what you can expect to receive
- Ideas for how to use hostas
in a garden
- How to plant hostas
- How to divide hostas
- Growing hostas in containers
- How to over-winter in the
ground or in containers
- How to use our HostaSearch™
database
- Hosta terminology and what
the terms mean - with examples
- Species hostas - where did
all of these cultivars come from
- What does tissue culture
mean and why is that an
advantage for you?
- Technologies available to
fertilize your hostas
- Ideas on using hostas with
rocks, boulders, and water
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Survey Coming Soon via Email
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Please help us help you by
completing it! This is very
important if we are to learn more
about your hostas or garden needs,
any frustrations you have with us,
how we can improve, other plant
genus you might like us to sell,
etc.
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Fundraisers |
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We will be offering a fundraising
program for hostas this fall and
spring! We will provide more
information in an upcoming
newsletter. |
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Help Us Improve & Serve You Better!
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Email: Please email us with
questions or comments. Include your
order number if you're referencing
an order placed with us. Email
allows us to be more efficient,
accurate, and speedy in our
responses to your questions.
(varying time zones and work
schedules make telephone tag a
pain!) If you feel a need to place
an order by phone due to credit card
concerns, please know that we have a
very secure site.
Phone calls: Emails are much
preferred over phone calls.
However, if you must call, please
leave a slow and clear message on
our voicemail with your order
number.
During checkout, please
provide the proper shipping to
address. Address that do not pass
our USPS verification system may
take longer to ship and create
problems.
Word of mouth advertising and
forwarding emails are two great
forms of advertising. Help us grow
so that we can provide more
varieties, a better service, and
always low prices.
Linking websites: linking
websites is a wonderful form of
advertising - we are looking for
partners.
Tough economy: With gas at
$4 a gallon and food prices
climbing, our Best Value TC hostas
are an excellent cost saving option.
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Shipping late March / early April in
2009
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Next spring I plan on heating our
greenhouses and shipping hostas in
late March to early April for those
of you in southern climates. More
details will follow in another
newsletter. I also hope to
eliminate or reduce the backorder
problem. Although our suppliers are
some of the top in the world, plants
can be unpredictable at times.
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The HostaSearch™ Database
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We had our first donor in two years
contribute money towards expanding
and maintaining the world's largest
(and free) database,
HostaSearch™. Thank you! I am
now looking at the new, 2007 hosta
registrations book from the American
Hosta Society. We have 14 pages of
small-type data to tediously enter
into our database, not including all
of the photos we take or purchase.
We have a crew of three, including
myself, photographing gardens. Each
photo needs to be cropped, cleaned
up in Photoshop, coded into our
software, resized, and watermarked
for photo credits. Keeping this
database alive is a big job! If you
can
contribute money or
photos, I do appreciate it. I
don't want to shut the database down
or make it a fee-based database
again but I can't afford to fund it
by myself. |
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Photos & Videos Always Welcome!
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Thanks for those that have
generously offered to share their
photos. Unfortunately, it appears
that perhaps some of you are not
attaching your photos properly as we
receive your e-mail but no photo
attachments. Please ensure that
your photo is correctly attached to
your email.
Please share your photos and
videos! We are happy to watermark
your name on the photo, give you a
photo credit elsewhere on our site,
or both. If you would like to share
some digital video of great gardens,
including your own, please email me
at
tomcarlson@hostasdirect.com.
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Where to find photos not on our
website |
Hostas Library:
www.HostaLibrary.org Bob
Axemere and his volunteers have
created and continue to improve the
Hosta Library. Some hosta vendors
continue to go against the Hosta
Library's requests and link directly
to their individual pictures. At
HostasDirect, we respect photo
copyrights and the desires of the
hardworking volunteers at
Hostalibrary.org
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Canadians Please Help! |
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We are considering expanding our
business into your country next
year. If any of you would like to
share your ideas and experiences
about the needs of Canadian hosta
lovers or how we should market and
advertise please write to me at
tomcarlson@hostasdirect.com with
your phone number and I will call
you back. |
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Hosta Praying Hands - Jerry Williams
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Jerry stopped in at our retail
site. It was great to see him and
also hear him talk about how he
discovered Praying Hands in a
nursery in a small town in Minnesota
called Pequot Lakes. Folks, keep
your eyes out for sports in your
gardens or local nurseries. You
might have discovered the next
awesome hostas and would be able to
receive some nice royalties if you
patent the plant. |
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For Minnesota & Surrounding States |
I
will speak at Dr. Bob Olson's
garden on July 19, 2008 at 11am and
2pm.
Bob Olson, M. D., has donated his
beautiful gardens and expertise for
the annual
Bright Gardens for Fraser Tour.
Bob is a past American Hosta Society
President and present editor of the
Hosta Journal. His generous
contributions to hostas and those
that love them are numerous and over
many years. Bob showed me his
garden last night. I had not seen
the garden since the American Hosta
Society Convention was in the Twin
Cities in 2000. Although it was hit
by hail this year, the garden is
still unique and outstanding! I
saw at least 60 varieties, mainly
direct from Japan, that I had never
seen before. His collection has
over 250 hosta varieties. He also
has other beautiful, rare plants as
well.
HostasDirect was a sponsor of the
Bright Garden for Fraser last year.
This year I've been asked to speak
about hostas at Bob's garden which
is quite an honor. Bob is one of
the top hosta people in the world.
He told me he will also be present
and available!
Fraser is a wonderful organization
that serves children and adults with
special needs. If you want to see
some of the
Twin Cities best gardens and
make a worthwhile contribution to a
great cause and organization, please
join the tour or
contribute financially.
I
will also be speaking at the
Minnesota Water Garden Society
monthly meeting on Sunday, August 10
from 2 PM to 4 PM at the Southdale
Library. To learn more about
their meetings and the upcoming pond
tour, visit
www.MWGS.org. The first meeting
is free to prospective members.
They are co-sponsors of the Twin
Cities Pond and Landscape Tour which
will be held July 19-20 and the
26-27, 2008. The MWGS helps raise
thousands of dollars for the
Children's Cancer Research Fund.
There is no charge to visit the over
100 gardens on display as the tour
depends on donations from
individuals and corporations.
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New Staff ---
view all our staff ---
(in addition to Mary & Chris
Alexander and Joe Husby)
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I am very proud of our hardworking
staff and fortunate to be associated
with them. They are very
customer-oriented, have great ideas,
are good people, and are fun! I
know they all would like to thank
you for your business. Your
business provides income for 6
college students trying to fund
their education and 4 of us over 50
that have bills to pay. Thanks
again!
Yuriy Yefimenko, age 32 is an
intern and in the MBA program at the
Metropolitan State University. He
also has extensive studies in
agronomy and a degree in mine
engineering from Ukrainian State
Academy of Water Engineering in his
native Ukraine. He has worked in
horticulture in northern Sweden,
Denmark, Ireland, and with another
company in Minnesota. Yuriy and his
lovely wife, Gnanna, are expecting
their first child in October. Yuriy
is an extremely determined,
hardworking, trustworthy, and
intelligent employee with valuable
ideas and a great sense of humor!
We are very lucky to have him!
Danielle Dykema, is a
sophomore studying plant genetics at
the University of Minnesota
Agriculture School just one mile
from our headquarters. Danielle,
Yuriy and I will be conducting some
experiments soon with our hostas.
Sorry folks, the tests are secret!
Laura Nelson, is originally
from Barrington, Illinois. She is
an intern and a senior at the
University of Minnesota - Carlson
School of Management. She helps us
with a wide-range of activities,
including: writing, editing and
improving our website, optimizing
our web site, marketing,
advertising, customer service,
accounting, retail sales, and
packing and shipping orders. She
has already made some wonderful
improvements to our company. She
plays club volleyball at the U of M
and is a huge Chicago Cubs fan. You
may have seen her on the lead story
of the WCCO news last winter being
interviewed about mass transit at
the U of M or helping out with
promotions at University of
Minnesota sporting events.
Mary Billadeau, (age 29 and
holding) worked for 22 years for a
local garden center. In addition to
her many talents and depth of
experience, she keeps everyone in
laughing! Mary works primarily in
packaging and shipping, as she loves
working with the plants.
Lisa Rygg, (age 29 and
holding) also worked at a local
garden center and also helped us
with packing and shipping orders.
She recently had emergency retina
surgery and is making a good
recovery.
Courtney and Jennifer Smalley
Jennifer is studying psychology and
Japanese at the University of
Minnesota and Courtney is studying
animation at MCTC.
Jeff VerSteeg (HostasDirect
alum) age 24
While Jeff was a senior at
Northwestern University in
Roseville, along with Luke Weinhagen
and Don Raleigh at Evolve Systems,
he custom-programmed our shopping
cart software to integrate with our
HostaSearch™ database, server, and
about 9 other pieces of software.
It was a huge, complicated project.
Jeff rose to the challenge - while
still in school! Jeff was both an
Academic and Basketball All-American
at Northwestern College in Roseville
graduating in 2005. After
graduating he passed up foreign
basketball opportunities to work at
KPMG LLP. Jeff's sister, Pam, is
married to Matt, my first cousin's
son. Every time I use our software
I think of Jeff. Jeff is married to
his college sweetheart, Whitney, and
they're expecting their first child!
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Tornados, floods, & financial
hardships |
We are sorry so many of you have
been hit hard by tornado, floods,
and financial hardship. It seems
inappropriate to bring up but I have
heard that during the Red River
Valley floods in northeastern
Minnesota hostas were underwater for
6 months and lived.
Here in the Twin Cities area of
Minnesota we had sporadic and
unusually late cold weather and even
snowstorms up through the first week
of May. It was possibly the worst
spring in recorded history and our
crops are still 2-3 weeks behind.
We also had two wind storms gusting
to 60 mph, a car that crashed into
our greenhouse (that could have hurt
or killed 5 people if it had been a
Monday or Tuesday), and surprise
backorders from two outstanding
vendors. In short, things were
very, very, hectic.
Again, I sincerely apologize for any
delays in shipping and for phone
calls that were not returned
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Thanks for your business, for
reading this very long e-mail, and
for passing along our name to your
friends!
Tom Carlson,
OOwner and President
HostasDirect, Inc. and
IDealGardenMarkers
P.S. Which candidate will mandate
installing a huge hosta garden in
the White House?/span> |
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