Apr. 4–It sounds a bit like a pet rock for gardeners, but consumers seem to love the upside-down Topsy Turvy tomato planter, which has been sprouting all over the marketplace.
Bill Felknor, a folksy inventor from Knoxville, Tenn., has sold millions of his curious creations since they first appeared on QVC in 2003 — more than seven million last year alone, making it one of the most popular gardening products ever introduced.
“I give the good Lord 100 percent of the credit,” Felknor said of his “hanging gardens,” which grow tomatoes out the bottom of a soil-filled bag and are watered from the top.
Skeptics (there are many) ascribe Felknor’s success to more earthbound forces: mass marketing and the ageless attraction of novelty. Here, the target audience is anyone looking for a no-muss-no-fuss way to grow tomatoes, the nation’s number-one garden plant, and, perhaps, a conversation piece for the deck or patio.
Topsy is that, for better or worse.
“I sell it — of course, I do — and they’re very popular, but I wouldn’t have it in my yard. They look hideous,” said Drew Carroll, a horticulturist at Feeney’s, the nursery and garden center in Feasterville.
Topsy is everywhere these days. Besides QVC, where Felknor’s tomato planters and other Topsy products are best sellers, they’re in all the big boxes and thousands of Walgreens, Bed Bath & Beyond, CVS, and Ace Hardware stores across the United States as well as in Canada, Europe, Australia, Japan, and, soon, China.
This spring, four new Topsy planters will debut, including ones for strawberries and hot peppers. Later this year comes a Topsy “patio terrace,” comprising six plastic plant-platforms on a stand.
Where will it end?
“The secret to inventing is as simple as can be: You have to find a problem and solve it,” said Felknor, a longtime inventor, who previously worked in newspapers, public relations, and advertising. He contends that the idea for Topsy — a less labor- and space-intensive way for kids, city folks, and seniors to garden — came to him in the middle of a sleepless night.
It’s a natural — times three, according to Scott Testa, a business professor at Cabrini College in Radnor, who grows tomatoes the old-fashioned way.
Like any consumer group, he said, a certain percentage of gardeners are on the hunt for the hot new thing. With the increased interest in home vegetable gardens, even folks with little or no green space want to get growing. And the idea of being able to do this without getting dirty or having to weed . . .
Popularity: 3% [?]
