(Jul. 23) When Scotts Miracle-Gro made the decision to close the doors on its 56-store Smith & Hawken retail unit, it marked an end of an era in lawn and garden retailing. The chain had been around for 30 years and brought a decidedly upscale edge to outdoor living.

Interestingly, the demise of Smith & Hawken came at a time when many observers see the outdoor living category -- fueled by staycations and gardening trends -- as a rare bright spot in a darker home improvement landscape.

Scotts Miracle-Gro, which acquired Smith & Hawken in 2005, announced the decision to begin the closing process in early July. At an Oppenheimer & Co. investors conference last week, Scotts CFO Dave Evans explained that the original idea behind Smith & Hawken was to "take the brand and extend it into our channels where we're already doing business and had existing customer relationships."

Evans continued: "That proved to be more challenging and became even more challenging in the economic environment we are in today. The business had been losing money. We explored multiple options to divest this business and at the end of the day concluded the best option for our shareholders was to actually just shut the stores down."

We asked our readers if they thought there was anything that could have saved Smith & Hawken. Here's what we heard.

"What killed Smith and Hawken?  Logistics and information technology. We were an S&H retail 'partner' through True Value and experienced their failure firsthand. Scotts must never have taken a look at that side of the business, or did, and realized it was insurmountable and too far down the proverbial tube.

“Their order entry system was a mess, their billing system was a mess, and their inventory control system was ridiculous. As a result, customer service was abysmal, and when all you needed was a part (which they would generally not ship), they would send a whole new unit. Frankly, I wasn’t surprised when they went out. The simple answer was poor management.”

— Bob Whelan
Washington Supply Co.
Washington Depot, Conn.

“Smith & Hawken displayed product in recent years at Ace Hardware's semi-annual conventions. I was really expecting products that were far superior to any other patio furniture displayed. I was surprised that the similar pieces of hardwood furniture imported from Chinese vendors were more comfortable -- the S&H pieces seemed a bit smaller by comparison and just didn't 'fit' me -- and I'm only 5'10" and 180 pounds.”

— Mike Costoff
Ace Hardware
Delavan, Wis.

“Obviously only a guess, but there were probably some locations that were good and some that were not -- and perhaps they waited too long to face reality and get out of the bad ones before they pulled down the entire organization. Years ago, a good friend who owned a large chain of stores told me – ‘for each loser, it takes three winners to compensate for it.’ ”  

— Paul Siegel
VP sales
GoPro Construction Solutions

"I am not sure anything could have helped them. Just became too upscale for the USA. … It appears we are becoming a country of China-product loving shoppers."

— Nick P.

"My wife loves the store and would go quite often. Typically, she would only buy a couple of small items since the vast majority of their product seemed to be priced in the stratosphere for what it was. The quality of the product was never an issue and the store was always a joy to browse, and in my opinion, the major factor was high pricing."

— Anonymous