"me" wrote in message
...
"wayne crimi" wrote in
news
Recently the Wall St Journal ran an article about Home Depot training
7000 of its garden center workers to be "nursery consultants" via an
online course. Does anyone have information on that course, how I can
take it etc.....?



I am a home depo "nursery consultant" and the online training is at the
stores. In a nutshell its 4 hours of computer training on the proper way
to care for plants and their needs. ITs very generalized and really has
very little value as learning about plants. Its a gimmick to bring in
customers. Lowes does the same thing, BTW.

bullshit. I am a plant specialist at a Lowes, and we have specific
waterer's, sales consultants, team leaders, zone managers and managers. My
job for the last ten years as a plant specialist requires me to be
knowledgable about plants of all kinds, be able to receive plant trucks,
handle customers and ordering, displays and other responsibilities. While
we're not required to have a master gardener's degree or nursery document,
we have several on hands training video tapes and Lowes requires that
EVERYONE from managers on down to basic employee's do an hour of training
every week.

I have been encouraged thru the years to further my abilities regarding the
nursery. You might run across a Lowes employee in the nursery that might
not know a perennial from an annual, but they're not full time and are
possibly the loaders.

The waterer has to watch a watering video as well as have training. But I
agree that it might seem generalized, but Lowes is more involved. Just
selling plants isn't good enough. We have to be able to honestly instruct
customers regarding them as the inside garden center people have to have a
very substantial knowledge of fertilizers, insecticides and such. We don't
have the Lowes Nursery One year guarantee for nothing.

dragon