Tis the season…to fill your yard with plastic pink flamingos? Perhaps, if you look to the Gardener’s Supply Co. catalog for holiday decorating ideas. The cover of the holiday 1999 edition of Burlington, VT-based Gardener’s Supply features a rustic snow-covered Vermont farmhouse, with a wreath on the door and a fir tree in the yard, all tastefully trimmed in gold lights. Meanwhile, the yard is filled with dozens of pink flamingos, their dainty wire legs splayed amid the snowdrifts.
The kitschy creatures have found an unlikely advocate in the gardening tools and gifts cataloger. Gardener’s Supply got the idea for the cover from a catalog customer who ordered 50 pink flamingos to fill her brother’s yard when he turned 50. It may not be Christmas in the country as we know it, but the $39 million cataloger is tickled pink with the concept. According to head buyer Frank Oliver, “Several flocks of flamingos have left our Vermont warehouse – in fact, they’re flying out of here in droves!”