I saw it for myself a few months back at the Orange County Farm Supply in Orange: Dr. Earth, a mainstream garden company selling POTting soil in a gray bag with black seven-pointed leaf motif.

The word POT is in an oversized font, “ting” is smaller. Dr. Earth described the POTting soil as “Ideal for organic medicine gardens.”

Store manager Chris Roy says the product leaves you to, “draw your own conclusions”.

Miracle-Gro, on the other hand, is not so shy about courting this growing class of avid gardener. Scott’s Chief Executive Jim Hagedorn said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, “I want to target the pot market … There’s no good reason we haven’t.”

Consider that sales are flat for garden chemicals in some segments and the medical marijuana growers (legal in 16 states) are where garden-related companies see growth, to the tune of $1.7 billion in sales this year.

The Wall Street Journal says raids of pot-growing operations often turn up Miracle-Gro products and that Hagedorn sees that as a good sign of brand awareness.

One undercover narcotics officer I know turned to Felco pruners after he seized so many pairs during pot-growing raids. He decided they had to be good since they slice tough hemp fibers so easily.

Will Felco come out with an specially designed pot-pruning pair of secateurs?

Checking into the pot-growing community on the web, I couldn’t help but notice UrbanCultivator.com, a company that has designed a home growing solution that looks similar to a built-in wine cooler.

The website depicts happy families and portly chefs growing their own kitchen herbs. The indoor growing appliance can be used for herbs, but like Roy said, the customer has to draw their own conclusions.

It will be interesting to see where Scotts Miracle-Gro will go with its latest marketing efforts. Since the in-your-face announcement in the Wall Street Journal, I wonder if Scotts will be the first to come out of the pot-growing closet with brands like Miracle-Bud, tag line, “Don’t kill weed and grass – grow it!”

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