Cover Story

A Willingness to Change

Jennifer Polanz

This year’s Green Profit/The Garden Center Group Young Retailer Award winner Tyler Cerbo of Cerbo’s Parsippany Greenhouse & Garden Center in Parsippany, New Jersey, has spent the better part of a decade working with a talented team to bring the family business back from the brink.

Features

5 Cool Annuals

Matthew Olson

We continue our exploration of unusual selections to draw customers out of their typical purchases and try something different.

Features

Beyond Clean Floors

George Grant & Tanner Bailey

Walk into any successful independent garden center and you’ll notice more than healthy plants.

Features

From Truck to Trunk

Erik Dietl-Friedli

Create a process for receiving live goods, getting it on the sales floor and making sure it finds its way into someone’s cart. For inspiration, here’s the process at Flamingo Road Nursery in Davie, Florida.

Features

Make It & Take It to the Next Level

Katie Elzer-Peters

The continued exploration of strategies to attract audiences to the garden center through art, crafting and creation.

Features

Nurture Retailing

John Stanley, Sid Raisch & Dries Jansen

Loyalty is earned through created experience, not tracked through transactions seen in the rear-view mirror.

Features

The Chosen Ones

Ellen C. Wells

Each year, retailers—at the behest of The Garden Center Group—roam the aisles at Cultivate in Columbus, looking for the products they think could catch the eye of their customers. Here are the Retailers’ Choice Award winners for 2026.

First

Developing the Bench

Jennifer Polanz

Thanks to that love of sports, I’ve taken to heart several sports-themed mantras (most cliched, but still appropriate) that I often think about and repeat.

Friel World

Trials and Eras

John Friel

In the best trials, plants are expected to (mostly) fend for themselves.

Front Lines

7 Steps to Communicating Sustainability

Jennifer White

Over at Sustainabloom.org, Melinda Knuth, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Horticultural Science at North Carolina State University, shared a series of excellent tips on how to communicate environmental sustainability to consumers.

Front Lines

A Late Bloomer

Jeb S. Fields

It’s official—we haven’t even hit 2027 yet, but the Perennial Plant Association has voted that Vernonia Summer’s Swan Song is the 2027 Perennial Plant of the Year.

Front Lines

BFG Supply Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy

Jennifer Polanz

On August 18, BFG Supply officially filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy, along with several other subsidiary companies, in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.

Front Lines

Cool New Plant Alert

Jennifer Polanz

There were so many cool plants at Cultivate’26 this year in Columbus that I think this one got a little buried among the others.

Front Lines

Leslie’s New Book

Ellen C. Wells

Earlier this month, I had a nice, long chat with friend, horticultural consultant, author, teacher and so much more (artist, too!), Leslie Halleck.

Front Lines

Pets on the Payroll

Jennifer Polanz

Meet Buster, rescue dog, greeter, customer service specialist.

Front Lines

Rosy Soil Collab With Hilton Carter

Jennifer Polanz

n a mashup made in heaven, respected houseplant author and stylist Hilton Carter (who has nearly 700,000 followers on Instagram) has partnered with Rosy Soil to create his own limited edition blend.

Front Lines

Tea, Anyone?

Jennifer Polanz

Kitchen gardens are great, but for those looking to dial in even further, what about a tea garden?

Front Lines

Two Industry Icons Meet

Jennifer Polanz

If you followed the buzz on the Cultivate’26 trade show floor the Monday afternoon of the event, it led you (and about 70 to 80 other people) to the Star Roses & Plants booth where industry icon Martha Stewart and her entourage visited her namesake rose and met Ball Horticultural Company CEO Anna Ball for the first time.

Kiss My Aster

Groundbreakers!

Amanda Thomsen

Hey! Did you know you can ask Claude to mercilessly roast your entire business? Why would you?!

Profit

Positive Praise = Successful Staff

Bill McCurry

It’s easier to attract winning employees when you already have a winning team.

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Always Sunny Gold

PanAmerican Seed

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DIY Guru Auger

Power Planter Inc.

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Heliconia Love Bird

Lucanne LLC

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Novavert’s HS2 and HS Bravo

Prospiant Greenhouses

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Old Shoe Thank You Card

Snorty Morty Designs

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Petchoa CitraNova

Ball FloraPlant

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PlantTAGG

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Small Gifts Celebrating Natural Beauty

Toute-Petite

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Tabletop Propagation Design Vases

Floratrel

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The TickCheck Premium Tick Remover Kit

TickCheck LLC

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The Xplorer

The Original Muck Boot Company