Schedule of Events

Ready to boost sales and connect with today's customers? Join this interactive session and learn how to transform Garden Media Group's 2026 Garden Trends into concrete sales strategies. Garden Media's president and trendspotter, Katie Dubow, will dissect three to four of the company’s key trends, provide actionable advice on product selection, irresistible visual merchandising tips, effective cross-merchandising ideas, and targeted marketing strategies. Whether you're aiming for a store refresh or simply want to stay ahead of the curve, this session will give you the insights you need to thrive in 2026.

Tim spent two decades working in garden centers before joining The Garden Center Group in 2019 to help members with financial analysis and management. In this session, Tim will detail what he is tracking in the Group’s Weekly Department Review – which includes insights from more than 110 member garden centers – including transaction counts, average sales, inventory levels, general trends, and other KPIs, as well as key insights from the 2024 Profit and Loss Study. This session will help garden centers benchmark their businesses and provide attendees with the opportunity to get advice on the biggest financial questions and challenges facing IGCs today.

Stephanie's grandfather built Stuckey's into an empire — a roadside oasis that redefined America. How did he do it? What lessons can we learn from W.S. Stuckey that can be applied today? Stephanie finds wisdom in the past to define her future and how she runs Stuckey's.

For the first time in history, 5 generations collide in the workforce: The Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, and Generation Z. However, the workforce faces mass retirements from the Baby Boomer generation every day. Generation Z is quickly infiltrating the industry, and Millennials are stepping up to take over the preceding leadership positions, bringing new ideas surrounding technology, management and communication styles, company culture, and personal and professional values and expectations. In this seminar, we will share various perspectives inspired by professionals across the four prominent generations in the workforce today (Boomers, X, Millennials, and Z) providing insight into what once was versus today’s reality.

You will learn the following:

• What the current understanding of the state of the industry is from the perspective of each generation, as well as thoughts and feelings on these changes
• How leaders are managing and accommodating today’s workplace standards on company culture, communication, and work-life balance
•  Advice and insight on best practices when it comes to working alongside various generations and implementing and embracing change.

The spotlight is on AI (Artificial Intelligence) and how businesses can use this technology to increase efficiencies. Independent garden centers that take time to learn more about it and use it as a tool are going to win. This session will break down both the capabilities and limitations of AI, and how retailers can use the technology to support everything from customer service to education to email marketing to automating recurring tasks. Knowledge has always been a key differentiator for IGCs, and this talk will break down how businesses can retain that advantage while enhancing other aspects of their stores.  

An employee’s perception of the workers' compensation process is just as significant as the quality of care provided while they are recovering from an injury. Employers have the power to have a positive impact based on effective communication and detailed information shared with healthcare providers. Rob will review cases in which both communication and documentation have benefited or hindered this experience, and he will share strategies to help businesses mitigate prolonged work injury claims.

Cleveland-based Petitti Garden Centers opened its 10th retail location this spring. President A.J. Petitti says he’s been hoping to open a store in Bath Township, Ohio, for two decades. The process to purchase the building started in May 2023, and after a lengthy rezoning process, construction began in March 2024, with the former office building transforming into a light-filled 30,000-square-foot garden center. Two greenhouses for Petitti’s live plant material will also be on the property, which happens to be right next door to a Lowe’s. In this session, Petitti will share lessons learned from the process, which was more expensive and complicated than when the company built three garden centers in 2018. He’ll share what has evolved in the building process, why the location was right despite a big box being next door, and what other owners should consider when expanding.

Independent garden centers have long offered more than plants and have created experiences and offerings that set them apart from big box competitors. In this panel discussion, leaders from exceptional, Kansas-City area garden centers will dive into the various ways they’ve created a “third place” and ideas that have helped make their company’s destinations. Family Tree Nursery has long focused on experiential retailing, and its in-store café in Shawnee has been so successful that the company added a coffee truck at its Liberty store and plans to build out a permanent cafe in the Overland Park location. Colonial Gardens has 400+ public events on their calendar for the 2025 season – everything from Alpaca Brunches to Plant Bingo from Music in the Garden to Farm-to-Table Dinners. These experiences and spaces – made possible in part with efforts to create unique zoning – drive engagement with customers. Colonial will also explain the effects of the business’ current restructuring and how efforts in creating these experiences are a driving force for not only traffic and increasing the average order value (AOV), but how this community outreach has helped foster a devoted and supportive clientele. Each speaker on the panel will share key lessons and takeaways on how they’ve built and created these additional revenue streams and branding opportunities that complement their garden centers and have helped transform their businesses.