RETAIL ROUNDUP:

NEWPORT BEACH — Halloween is still two weeks off, but the Christmas season has already begun at Roger’s Gardens. Huge, decorated trees fill the home and garden store on San Joaquin Hills Road, while wreaths, hand-blown glass ornaments and wax fruit fill most of the available space.

It may seem early to string up end-of-the-year decorations, but for Roger’s Gardens, the Christmas season never really ends — except for about a month and a half in August and September.

The store begins stocking materials in January each year and continues through the late summer, with only a short break to concentrate on setting up the ghosts and jack-o’-lanterns.

“The next 90 days from October to December are the biggest retail time we have,” said Christopher Nichols, the lifestyle and production manager for Roger’s Gardens. “About 200,000 people will come in the next 90 days.”

They’ll have plenty to choose from, too, as the store has set out its Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas decorations simultaneously.

This year’s Halloween collection is based on a 1920s-style carnival sideshow, and Nichols said customers had already purchased a number of props from the display.

Even at this time of year, though, Christmas items still outsell the store’s other inventory.

And if Roger’s Gardens sells just one of its antique Christmas statues, it will have an impressive profit already: Among the offerings this year are a $22,000 Filipino wood statue of St. Joseph with the baby Jesus carved in the 1920s, and a figure of St. Ann with the child Mary from the 19th century that goes for $150,000.

Call Roger’s Gardens at (949) 640-5800 for more information.

Store owner gives small businesses a shot

Thanks to Jeff Yokoyama, the owner of the Generic Youth store on Pomona Avenue, there’s never been a better time to be a start-up clothing manufacturer in Costa Mesa — or a luckier time to be a shopper.

Starting Nov. 1, Yokoyama plans to give a break to small businesses around town by renting out the property next door to Generic Youth for one month at a time. The first company scheduled is a surf-wear manufacturer named Atwater, and Yokoyama is in the process of booking the months ahead.

The rotating space, he said, would give small companies a chance to try their hand at retail while at the same time exposing new clienteles to Generic Youth products.

“I feel that there’s a lot of small, up-and-coming, unknown companies that would love to have this opportunity to present their whole line in an environment where they can control their look and feel and get to do it for a month where they wouldn’t have to sign a lease,” he said. “They would just come in, pop up, and when they’re done, they’re done.”

MICHAEL MILLER may be reached at (714) 966-4617 or at [email protected].