Garden Centre Information Points for Gardeners - By: S.Roberts

Cultivating an ornamental garden is a relatively new pass time that was made popular in Victorian times by the upper classes. However it wasn't until more recently that the masses stopped growing vegetables and raising chickens in favour of growing ornamental gardens full of plants and flowers. So it's hardly surprising then that gardening isn't something that we are all naturally good at, and actually we need lots of advice when it comes to Gardening and a Garden Centre information point is just what the horticulturist ordered.

An information point or kiosk as they are also known are computer terminals usually with touch screens which provide the public with information or provide them a simple service. A garden centre information point for gardeners and visitors to garden centres would deliver information about plants and gardening to customers to help them to know which plants would be good to buy for their individual garden.

Designing a Garden
The kiosk can help a customer to make a simple design for their garden. The customer types in the measurements of the perimeter of their garden boundaries and the screen display a birds eye view plan of the garden. The user is also asked to say which direction is north in relation to they garden so that the kiosk knows which are the shady areas of the garden.

Users can drag and drop on existing features in their garden that they would like to retain such as Trees, patios, and decking for example. Users are also invited to add new features. The kiosk can calculate a guide of quantity of materials to create the new materials based on the measurements given. Based on this estimate the kiosk can also advise the customer of the approximate cost of the basic materials.

When the user has finished adding features, the kiosk adds shrubs and plants based on if the area is shady or sunny. The suggestions are also based on the plants that are currently in stock. In the case of bulbs and tubers, suggestions would also be made on what was ready for planting at the time.

The garden plan would be available to print out for the user to take away with them. The print out would include the names of the plants the kiosk had chosen for the border, so that the customer can go and find them in the garden centre.

Also on the print out the kiosk could issue vouchers for saving off particular plants that the customer buys that day.

Gardening Advice
The kiosk would also be able to give information about popular problems that all gardeners come across.

Which plants like to grow in shade, which plants don't mind clay soil, how can I keep slugs off my plant organically.

This information can help the customer whilst also advertising to them useful product that are sold in store to help with the problem. To organically reduce slugs you might suggest and advertise a beer slug trap and a frog habitat for example.

The kiosks could go as far as having information about how to build a gazebo pack that you sell in store. To display this information you could have images and text, but you could also have a video showing how to do it. This would help to make the customer feel confident that they could do it for themselves at home, and so help you to make more sales of those products that customer think that they just couldn't achieve themselves.

Kiosks and information points are growing in popularity on the high street, and they can also blossom in garden centres.

About the Author

http://www.kiosks4business.com develop touch screen kiosks and kiosk software. Find out more about http://www.kiosks4business.com the kiosks manufacturer and interactive kiosks on the website.

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