Gridiron gardening puts a floral flourish on football fever for Chiefs fans

Put football and flowers together, and what you get is “sporticulture” — a new twist on gardening that pairs team-spirited pots with mums, pansies and other colorful blooms perfect for the season.

Sporticulture is the brainchild of Cortland Smith, an unabashed fan of the Washington pro football team who walked into a greenhouse full of red and yellow pansies and saw more than beautiful flowers — he saw his team in living color.

Smith and his business partner, Pete Gilmore, took their concept to the NFL, which recognized a niche market and granted the necessary licensing. The two business partners have been running with it ever since.

“It’s not as much about gardening as it is about decorating,” Gilmore says, emphasizing the idea of pretty grab-and-go plants in pots that, with little fuss, turn a front porch or patio into a welcoming party venue.

The game-day decorators who have picked up on the idea are mostly women, he says, but the appeal is growing.

“We are hoping men, millennials, all kinds of people look at this and say, ‘Oh, that’s my team — that’s cool,’ and take it to a friend’s house,” Gilmore says.

Sporticulture made a quiet launch of its products in 2015. This year is the big kickoff: Fans across the country can find their favorites at garden shops and big-box stores. You can buy mums in Green Bay Packers gold in an NFL-themed pot, or fire-engine red mums in a two-gallon container sporting the arrowhead logo of the Kansas City Chiefs.

These products “bring team colors to life,” as the Sporticulture website says. Just so fans don’t miss the message, big plant labels amid the blooms look like football helmets. The promotion gives growers and garden shops that are already marketing long-lasting fall mums and cold-tolerant pansies a new way to expand their fall offerings, says Gilmore, who has been in the horticulture business for 40 years.

Sporticulture sells the pots and makes recommendations for plants, but garden shops are free to interpret the color schemes with plants appropriate for their own regions, he says. In Florida, one shop packed pots with colorful crotons, which just happen to echo the orange accent of the Miami Dolphins’ colors.

“We want growers to be creative” in matching one or more team colors with the pots, Gilmore says. He has seen pots packed with short-stemmed sunflowers and black-eyed Susans, and he looks forward to seeing ever more imaginative combinations as the concept catches on.

Sporticulture also has products for fans of the NHL, NBA and college teams.

The company sees a lot of potential at the intersection of horticulture and sports. Their product lineup includes giant plastic lawn bags that look like team helmets when they’re stuffed full of leaves.

They’re also selling LED lights that project your team’s logo onto the garage door. You can even buy a retractable hose decorated with the snazzy logos of NFL teams.

The company was recognized with two industry awards for innovation and new products. It may sound like another crazy sports concept, but putting gardening on the gridiron is a first down for flowers. Go for it.

This story was originally published November 13, 2016 at 8:00 AM with the headline "Gridiron gardening puts a floral flourish on football fever for Chiefs fans."