Retail Revival: Taking the team to a trade show
BY C.L. FORNARI, Garden Center Magazine
With advance planning, you’ll see great returns from the investment made in sending your team to a trade show. Since it can be a significant expense to send your team to a big show, here are some tips so that you maximize their experience and what they bring back to the business.

NGB reveals 2025 “Year of the” genera
By: Lawn & Garden Retailer magazine -- National Garden Bureau (NGB) has created trendy, creative and on-point marketing tools to help the industry promote the 2025 “Year of the” crops. These tools are designed to make your marketing life easier and allow you to reap the rewards from this highly successful national marketing campaign.

Eco-Friendly Gardens
By: Andrew Bunting, Green Profit magazine -- With climate change becoming a bigger challenge for gardeners across the country, more and more are looking to help support local wildlife and pollinators through creating an ecologically functional garden. Thankfully, there are many things you can do to create ecological-friendly habitats in your home garden.

NEW FOR 2025! First Editions® FlowerFull™ Smooth Hydrangea
By: Bailey Nurseries, Lawn & Garden Retailer magazine -- FlowerFull™ Smooth Hydrangea from First Editions® boasts superior genetics that produce significantly bolder blooms and sturdier upright stems. With two-to-three times more blooms per season than other Hydrangea arborescens, FlowerFull™ is a major improvement to the industry standard.

A Store by Any Other Name
By: Kim Baker. Lawn & Garden Retailer -- Telling a compelling brand story for your store creates more than just a shopping experience for customers. Your garden center is more than just another store. By nature, it’s a place people shop to help create an environment they want to come home to -- How you tell your store’s story builds upon that and creates loyalty and engagement with your shoppers.

Shrinking Profits
By: Bill McCurry, Green Profit magazine -- Asset shrinkage is difficult to identify and control unless the entire company is committed to accuracy and consistency in their business practices. Major garden centers seem to have mastered this, but which came first—their success or their mastering of operational issues?

How to achieve an 'imperfectly perfect' cottage garden
By: BY Audrey Trevarthan, Garden Center Magazine -- A flower-filled, natural garden is in high demand, and it’s called a cottage garden. Independent garden centers can appeal to customers by hopping on the cottage gardening trend. “Cottage gardens are really all about the flowers,” says Laura Janney, a botanical stylist, gardening expert and co-founder of The Inspired Garden.

May 2024 retail sales data shows a ‘reasonably healthy consumer’
By: National Retail Federation -- Data recently released by the U.S. Census Bureau shows retail sales grew again in May and helped drive a still-expanding economy, National Retail Federation (NRF) chief economist Jack Kleinhenz said .... “May’s retail sales give us a snapshot of a reasonably healthy consumer even though spending growth is fluctuating somewhat,”

How Loyalty Programs Benefit Independent Garden Centers
By: The Garden Center Show -- For most businesses, more marketing dollars go into attracting new customers than retaining existing customers. It is often said that it costs five times more to attract new customers than to retain customers, so it would benefit small businesses on a budget, such as independent garden centers, to shift more of that focus from acquisition to retention.

Creating a Vibe
By: Jennifer Polanz, Green Profit magazine -- We focus a lot on live goods in this magazine and for good reason—they’re generally the most profitable part of a garden center business. But oftentimes, retailers are looking to expand their sales to include nonperishable products that are adjacent to the live goods. And that’s where we look to décor to add form and function to the outdoor space.

The low-maintenance, eco-friendly lawn that will still impress your neighbors
By: The Washington Post -- This year, a Tasmanian yard that hadn't been watered in 10 years and featured a dead brushtail possum won the title of ugliest lawn in the world. The contest, organized by the island of Gotland in Sweden, rewards those who turn over their yards to nature to save water and change the world's perception of the ideal lawn.

Planting the seed: 3 tips to excel in the lawn and garden department
By: Hardware Retailing -- After spending extended time at home in the last few years, consumers are entranced with their lawns and gardens now more than ever. According to a 2023 study from the Home Improvement Research Institute (HIRI), homeowners believe taking care of their lawns and gardens is just as important as regular home maintenance.

Intense Heat Waves Are the New Normal. How Can IGCs Help Gardeners Cope?
By: The Garden Center Show -- This summer has been hot. Very hot. Intense heat waves are sweeping the nation. IGCs can help gardeners cope with products and education geared toward water conservation and heat protection.

How Loyalty Programs Benefit Independent Garden Centers
By: The Garden Center Show -- For most businesses, more marketing dollars go into attracting new customers than retaining existing customers. It is often said that it costs five times more to attract new customers than to retain customers, so it would benefit small businesses on a budget, such as independent garden centers, to shift more of that focus from acquisition to retention.

Frisella Nursery -- a local plant nursery like no other
Experience Life at Frisella Nursery .... Our garden center has everything you’ll need to get—and keep—your garden growing thanks to our extensive selection of Missouri native plants and locally grown plants cultivated in our own plant and tree nurseries right here in Missouri.

Greenleaf Nursery -- Wholesale Grower of Predictable Quality Plants.
Greenleaf is one of America's largest wholesale nursery growers, each year producing many millions of container-grown plants for retailers, re-wholesalers and landscapers across the U.S. and Canada. Primary products include: one of the industry widest selections of broadleaf evergreen, flowering and deciduous shrubs; 70-plus varieties of ornamental grasses; a full compliment of shrub roses; a broad conifer selection; annual, perennial, and tropical color; an excellent shade and ornamental tree offering, and a selection of the most popular small fruit and fruit tree varieties.  Visit Our Booth @ D.I.G. Conference!

Home Nursery: Your Midwest Nursery Grower -- Serving Wholesale Customers Since 1921!
Great Plant People Growing Great Plants! Home Nursery is a family-owned business in its third generation of leadership. We grow an extensive selection of plant material at our production farm in Albers, IL that is shipped to 15 states throughout the Midwest. Two distribution centers, one in Albers, IL and one in O’Fallon, MO service the local St. Louis Metro area with a large variety of the highest quality nursery stock for any size job.  Visit Our Booth @ D.I.G. Conference!

Loma Vista Nursery -- we grow plants we are proud of!
Growing healthy plants for independent garden centers, landscape contractors, & wholesale distributors -- At Loma Vista Nursery, Our container facility is located in Ottawa, Kansas and sits on over 300 acres. There, you will find a vast selection of pot-in-pot trees, shrubs, roses, grasses, perennials and groundcovers. Approximately 20 miles north you’ll find our ‘Field of Trees’ in Willow Springs, Kansas. Loma Vista Nursery produces field-grown shade & ornamental trees, upright junipers and spruce, as well as many other deciduous and evergreen varieties on over 600 acres of perfect Midwest soil.  Visit Our Booth @ D.I.G. Conference!

Focal Pointe Outdoor Solutions -- We love Plants ... ALL THINGS HORTICULTURE
We create landscape brands for people who are as dedicated to their craft as we are to ours. We’re a dedicated team of sincere, authentic landscaping professionals focused on the unique needs of our clients. Our talented team includes horticulturalists, arborists, and irrigation specialists.

Growing Green -- Custom Interior & Exterior Plantscapes
Whatever the size of your business or organization — large or small — single office or multiple locations — our award-winning experienced plantscaping designers here in St. Louis will enhance your corporate brand by bringing your interior and exterior work space to life.

Grow Native! ... Promoting naturally resilient plants for naturally beautiful landscapes
Grow Native! helps protect and restore biodiversity by increasing conservation awareness of native plants and their effective use in urban, suburban, and rural developed landscapes of the Lower Midwest—Missouri, southwestern Illinois, northern Arkansas, and eastern Kansas.  Visit Our Booth @ D.I.G. Conference!

BWI Companies -- Agricultural solution provider, distributor, and wholesaler
BWI currently distributes lawn and garden products, horticultural products, and turf products to garden centers, farm & feed stores, hardware stores, grocery, greenhouse growers, nursery growers, landscapers, lawn & landcare companies, golf courses and other related outlets.  Visit Our Booth @ D.I.G. Conference!

Deep Roots Microbiome -- Enhance natural beauty while making it healthier every day
If you are a nature lover and find yourself greatly attracted to greenery, you’re at exactly the right spot! Deep Roots Microbiome Company is where you get to enhance natural beauty while making it healthier every day. With us, you get the microbes needed to strengthen and nurture your plants to see them grow into healthy plants.

TreeDiaper (Zynnovation) -- Save Plants, Save Water, Save the Planet.
The TreeDiaper™ is an advanced plant hydration system. TreeDiaper is a patented, multifunctional plant protection system featuring slow-releasing irrigation, auto-recharging with rain/snow, salt damage mitigation, weed control & extreme weather protections. By absorbing rain or irrigation water before slowly releasing it back when soil dries, it significantly boosts the field capacity and plant available water. When used properly, it promotes healthy outward root growth that facilitates establishment of newly planted trees and shrubs and enhances the long term health.  Visit Our Booth @ D.I.G. Conference!

Hortica: We provide protection for Garden Centers that help you grow
Coverages, service, and knowledge you can trust You count on keeping your garden center operating at its fullest - especially during your high seasons. Count on us to help protect your business with appropriate coverages and service. We have more than 135 years of experience exclusively serving the horticultural industry.

Missouri Green Industry Alliance (MoGIA)
MoGIA: The leader in serving green industry professionals w/ unique solutions that compliment today's marketplace. The mission of MoGIA is to provide a unified voice for Missouri’s green industry with a vision to offer a resource that advances the green industry and increases public awareness of the industry’s value to Missouri.  Visit Our Booth @ D.I.G. Conference!

Kansas Nursery & Landscape Association
PROMOTING PROFESSIONALISM IN THE KANSAS NURSERY, LANDSCAPE, AND GARDEN CENTER INDUSTRY THROUGH KNOWLEDGE SHARING AND EDUCATION  Visit Our Booth @ D.I.G. Conference!