The Power of Connections

By 2018, the Great Recession of 2007-2009 was a decade in the past.

But it had been detrimental to the garden center and lawn and landscape industries, and leaders of Garden Center magazine saw there was still a lot of rebuilding and recovering occurring. 

There were inspiring businesses with stories of hard work, success and yes, failure, that needed sharing with their peers. 

It was something people in the independent garden center community realized was missing — they would hear from consultants, who are incredibly valuable as well, but there weren’t opportunities to hear from other owners about top challenges and best practices. 

A conference would also help bring the content in the magazine to life and give people who had read about each other to actually meet each other the opportunity.

For all those reasons — and inspired by successful conferences held by other publications within GIE Media, Garden Center magazine’s parent company — the Garden Center Executive Summit was born. 

The first show was held in Denver in 2019, followed by the second show in New Orleans in 2020. Fortunately, the show was held in February, just one month before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the world. 

The first two shows were a roundtable format, with garden center owners and other staff in small groups networking with their peers.

“They were teaching and learning from each other,” says Michelle Simakis, the editor of Garden Center magazine at the time who was instrumental in launching the conference. (She’s now editor of sister publication Cannabis Business Times.) 

Attendees have said that being together in the same room is a validation of the challenges they’re dealing with while also providing invaluable opportunities to network and discuss ideas and solutions. 

“What I think is really valuable about the Garden Center event — and a lot of the events that GIE does — is that they provide actionable takeaways that people can implement in their business today [or] down the road a few weeks,” Simakis says. “Because they’ve been there, they’ve done it and they know what they’re talking about.” 

By that time, there was also interest in companies being able to interact with their suppliers and vendors who support the industry and learn from each other. There was also a void to be filled due to shows that had shuttered during the pandemic. 

The first Garden Center Conference & Expo was held in Orlando in 2021. It was again held in Orlando in 2022 before moving to Minneapolis in 2023. 

The expanded show added two consecutive tracks, providing an opportunity to include department managers in the education sessions.

“With the new Garden Center Conference & Expo, it became more of a team atmosphere,” says former Garden Center magazine editor Kate Spirgen, who helped conceive and plan the new and expanded format. “There was something for everyone on the team, and they could attend and learn together.”

Garden center owners also brought the next generation of leaders and those who were in line to eventually take over the business.

“It was a great way to give them not only the education experience, but to help them make connections in the industry,” Spirgen says.

While attendees appreciated the big-picture information and hearing about long-term strategies, Spirgen says people were most excited about having actual takeaways they could bring back to the business and implement right away.

“Those takeaways really keep the momentum going,” Spirgen adds.

The networking at the conference is invaluable.

“I always heard from attendees how much they enjoyed getting to know other garden center owners and managers, how they were able to expand their network and talk to people who are dealing with the same problems they have,” Spirgen recalls.

Even with the expanded format, the Garden Center Conference & Expo was designed to promote camaraderie and retain the intimate setting achieved with the original summit.

“We expanded the event to make it accessible to more people, but it was also important to keep it at a size and scope that still allowed people to get to know one another,” Spirgen says. “People can learn just as much from each other participating in the roundtables, meeting in the hallways, having coffee during the networking breaks or going to dinner as they do from the speakers. It starts with a simple question or comment about something a speaker said, goes into a full-blown conversation with people exchanging business cards, connecting on each other’s social media channels and making plans to catch up. It was really fun to watch that spark and see a whole new relationship being formed.”

The Garden Center Conference & Expo is special and valuable to the industry because it’s just for independent garden centers. It’s focused on IGCs and their distinct needs. It allows attendees to dig in and go beyond the surface level of topics, Spirgen says.

“It brings together people from different regions who operate different businesses of varied sizes with different focuses. Some specialize in houseplants. Some specialize in natives. Some focus on the standard annuals and perennials. Some people are just starting out. Some have been around for 40 or 50 years,” Spirgen says. “Because everyone in this industry and everyone at the conference is so passionate about what they do, when you get that many people who are excited about the same thing in the same room, there’s an undeniable energy that inspires everyone.”

That energy persists with attendees once they’re back home. And that spills over into their customer base and their communities.

“What the garden center businesses are doing really matters,” Simakis says. “Gardening is healthy. It brings you joy. It’s good for your housing price, for communities. There’s just so many benefits.”