There are some people you never imagine not being at a company. Marshall Dirks, Vice President of Marketing at Proven Winner North America, is one of them. And yet it is happening, as we received word this week that Marshall is retiring after 27 years with the company.

The list of what Marshall has helped Proven Winners accomplish since joining the company in 2000 is like that classic scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where the proclamation reader’s scroll keeps unrolling and unrolling. It’s just too much to mention! But what the sum of his endeavors at Proven Winners helped create is a plant brand that is recognized by name and by sight. That is no small feat.

“I am incredibly grateful for the people I’ve worked with and the friendships I’ve made along the way,” said Marshall in a press release. “It’s been a privilege to be part of this team and to tell the story of a brand that I truly believe in. However, after working hard and being on the road for almost 35 years, I’ve reached a time where I want to focus on my many other passions, such as supporting charitable work and those in need—as well as spending more time with my family.” Well-deserved, my friend.

“We are extremely happy for Marshall and his family,” said Mark Broxon, CEO of Proven Winners. “He has so many other interests and passions that he wants to pursue, and we are proud that he is moving to this next phase of his life. He has been a huge part of our success over the years.”

Proven Winners’ current Senior Marketing Director Brian Oster will be assuming Marshall’s responsibilities. I would say “big shoes to fill” but I imagine with a change in marketing leadership the better analogy might have something to do with a change in playbooks.

Meanwhile, whatever Marshall’s Act II is, he will undoubtedly bring that same Marshall enthusiasm, passion and dedication. Maybe even more so! Do great stuff, and don’t be a stranger.

I’m meeting up with Bossman Beytes in his (now) hometown of Orlando next week, making a few garden center and greenhouse pitstops on our drive down to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, for the 2026 edition of the Tropical Plant International Expo. FNGLA show management has some suggestions for educational sessions you should attend, if you plan on attending, as well.

• Highlighting exceptional floral design, floral designer Joyce Mason-Monheim will lead an educational session titled “Floral Designing With Tropical Foliage: How to Grow Sales with Blooming Displays for Your Retail ‘Root’-ine.” This session is slated for Thursday, January 22. Learn more about it and register for it HERE.

• Another excellent TPIE educational offering this year will be “Trendsetters in Bloom: New Plants Defining What’s Next in Horticulture.” This session will be led by Monrovia Chief Marketing Officer and renowned trendspotter Katie Tamony. Put this session on your calendar for Wednesday, January 21. Learn more and register HERE.
• This year’s Opening Session is a do-not-miss event (TPIE is known for that, actually). Fashion psychologist and lifestyle futurist Jill Hawkins of consultancy firm The Future Thief will help the audience build real connection with consumers by understanding their emotional quirks and creative potential in her keynote presentation “Cultivating Connection by Watering Our Weirdness: Discovering What Truly Connects People & Products.” I love weird!

Aside from the excellent educational sessions and workshops, there’s the wealth of new plants and products available to view on the trade show floor. Speaking of which, if you want to take part in The Garden Center Group’s search for this year’s winners of its Cool Product Awards, you can! Join Danny Summers, Tim Quebedeaux and fellow retailers on Wednesday of the show to search for the best new plants and products to award the Cool Product Awards. Walk the show at your own pace, then meet others at the end of the day to share details of what you discovered and see what everyone else found as well. Cool Product Award Judges receive a special code for a free Show Badge in their confirmation email. Sign up to participate in the Cool Product Awards here! Then visit the TPIE 2026 website to register with your FREE Badge code HERE. And as a last resort, anyone can meet up with Danny Summers after the Opening Session and receive a judging form. I appreciate your flexibility, Danny!

See you there? If you want to chat, either LET ME KNOW or flag me down in the aisles. Happy to chat.

By the way, the latest guest on my I Dig Your Story podcast will be attending TPIE, too. That would be Marta Maria Garcia, Dümmen Orange’s Head of Product Development and Marketing. You’re gonna love our conversation! Learn how Marta Maria went from Bacardi to begonias, learning that nurseries weren’t just for children and that this horticulture industry is a place for everyone.

Listen to it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart and Amazon Music. And sign up in your preferred podcast so you don’t miss an episode. I have a garden/plant shop owner coming your way next week!

Speaking of TPIE, Seed Your Future, the organization dedicated to promoting horticulture and inspiring people to pursue careers working with plants, is partnering with the Florida Nursery, Growers and Landscape Association (FNGLA)—the organizers of TPIE—to introduce a reimagined career fair experience at the show this year. They will present a refreshed program designed to connect students and educators with real-world opportunities across the green industry through immersive, on-the-show-floor engagement.

“FNGLA and Seed Your Future are both committed to opening doors for the next generation,” said Jazmin Albarran, executive director of Seed Your Future, in a press release. “By learning about new opportunities, meeting industry professionals face-to-face, and seeing the work happening on the show floor, students will gain a clearer picture of where their passions can take them.”

Seed Your Future’s refreshed career fair schedule will blend structured programming with hands-on exploration. Students and educators will take part in a series of activities designed to introduce them to the people and professions shaping the green industry, including:

• TPIE and Career Fair introductions from FNGLA Leadership
• Group scavenger hunts to 30-plus exhibitor booths on the show floor
• Self-led exhibitor visits for deeper exploration

“The 2026 TPIE Career Fair marks a new chapter in how industry and education can come together to showcase the future of horticulture,” said Merry Mott, director of certifications and career development at FNGLA. “This event gives students a chance to make meaningful industry connections and discover the many opportunities waiting for them.”

If you’ll be at the show, you’ll see this career fair and those involved taking place on and around the show floor on Friday, January 23, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. If you want these future horticulture industry members to stop by your booth or learn more about your business, contact Courtney Dyal and she’ll get you connected!

“Grandmacore” was a feature in my local paper (The Boston Globe) this week. “People like me, in their 20s and 30s,” says the author, “are leaning into so-called ‘grandma hobbies.’ That can include everything from crocheting and knitting to bread baking, gardening and canning … There are millions of videos online of young people proudly baking sourdough, sewing their own clothing and tending to houseplants.”

What’s old is new again. The question the author asks is why. She proposes these pursuits are an antidote to our “hectic, unpredictable and high-anxiety environment.” The article goes on to list a number of statistics to support that: the average adult spends seven hours a day looking at a screen (is that all?); one in five adults say they feel anxious (is that all?) and online searches for terms like “mindfulness’ keep increasing each year.

The author proposes that one can’t doomscroll if one’s hands are covered in dough—and to extend that metaphor—digging in the dirt.

“Grandma hobbies” aren’t about age at all (we know that)—they are about being in community, enjoying each other’s company, remembering what’s important in life, and snuggling into something that is simpler, slower and intentional.

Gardening gives you that, but so do many other hobbies of bygone days. The author closed the piece with several spots in the Boston area one could gather with friends and learn and create, including Allandale Farms. If your local paper wrote a similar article, be sure you’re listed as one of these community spaces.

Note: This is a sporadic series from colleague Jen Polanz that she would like to start writing based on visits to vendors and suppliers for the independent garden center market. She have a few done already, and if you’d like her to come see how you make your products, please email Jen and we’ll see if we can set up a visit.

Way back in September I had the pleasure of visiting the Border Concepts showroom and manufacturing facility in Lexington, North Carolina. We made the hour-plus long bus ride to the location after The Garden Center Group Fall Event in Raleigh, and it was a fascinating place to visit, especially if you’re looking for multiple product lines like pottery of all types, outdoor metal décor, wrought iron shepherds’ hooks and baskets, landscape edging and more. During that bus ride, Co-founder Tony Ferguson gave us the rundown on Border Concepts’ 35-year history, which started with landscape edging and diversified into lawn and garden products. He emphasized that they love collaborating with retailers. “Many of our product lines are based on garden centers’ ideas,” he said. “We listen to what customers want and make it.”

We got to see not only the pottery and décor showroom, but the behind-the-scenes manufacturing part, too. There are several stalls within the 120,000 sq. ft. manufacturing facility for artists to work their magic in, welding together metal creations. The automation-assisted powder-coating process was especially interesting, watching metal materials go from fabrication through the powder-coating and into a super-hot oven to bake it thoroughly before cooling.

Jen continues …

We saw more automation with robotic welders, a bending machine and the laser cutting machine that creates precision cuts quickly. They even designed special equipment to be able to make their shepherds’ hooks at the facility, along with the stands retailers can use to display them in.

Back in the showroom we were able to peruse the finished products, including unique metal containers made from BORCON steel, which features a special chemistry that allows them to develop a natural, rust-colored patina but doesn’t result in compromised integrity.

Of course, when you talk about Border Concepts, you have to talk pottery, too. In the 23,000 sq. ft. train depot-style showroom, there are collections of all styles made from a variety of materials, providing a wide assortment in one go, from small, indoor houseplants all the way to exterior large-scale plantings, including small-scale fountains and birdbaths.

The pottery hails from all over the globe, including of course, China, but most comes from other countries like Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, and even Portugal and Mexico. I asked Tony what has been selling well, and he pointed out the newer Sienna Terracotta Lanai Pedestal Planter (pictured below), which comes in a set of two (and has drainage holes).

I want to add one more note, too. Border Concepts bought Mad Mats a couple of years ago, and continue to add new designs to that line. They were giving away products as prizes on the bus-ride out to the showroom, and I won one! It’s supposed to be one you use for picnics and such, but the colors matched my upfront pots so well, I unfolded it and put it under my chairs on our front porch to add some more color. The mats clean up so nicely—they are made of recycled polypropylene plastic, and woven in such a way that dirt and debris can’t get into them, also making them resistant to water. I didn’t see any mildew or dirt on my mat as it got pulled up and stored for winter.

If all this sounds interesting to you and you’d like to take a look for yourself, you can either take a look at the virtual showroom HERE, and/or request a visit to see it for yourself HERE.

National Garden Bureau’s Gail Pabst sent along some gardening trends from Pinterest this week. As a reminder, Pinterest users are consistently searching for what interests them weeks if not months before actually purchasing and applying these ideas to their own homes and gardens.

So, what are NGB’s gardening followers interested in for upcoming use?

Searches for spring porch décor ideas are up 90% month over month. Start peppering in signs of spring in your customer outreach to let them know you have the solutions they are looking for.

Also trending up—even more so—are searches for urban and home gardening. As someone in the Northeast, I can tell you this winter—as young as it is—has been a long and cold one. I’m not surprised folks are already searching for spring gardening terms. To make the winter bearable, folks are also searching for rare and exotic flowers (up 20%) and ideas of what they could possibly do in the garden during winter (must be southerners!).

Two American Floral Endowment scholarships are currently open and are accepting graduate student applications.

The Altman Family Scholarship was established by the owners of Altman Plants, Ken and Deena Altman. The couple supports a variety of efforts to improve education and boost research for the industry. Because of their dedication to the betterment of the field, they have also established the Center for Applied Horticultural Research. The scholarships presented by the Altman Family Scholarship help students pursue their careers and their dreams with an annual scholarship of $5,000.

The second is the Paul Ecke, Jr. Scholarship honoring the late Paul Ecke, Jr. Paul was concerned about the future of floriculture and recognized that innovative researchers and educators are necessary for the continued success of the industry. He made significant contributions to the floriculture industry during his lifetime and believed strongly in research and education. The scholarship in his name awards one student $5,000 for two consecutive years, providing that they continue to meet requirements.

These merit-based, prestigious scholarships are for graduate students who have the skills and passion to become leading floricultural scientists and educators. Applicants must be in the process of successfully completing either a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in horticulture or a related field and must have the intention of pursuing an MS or Ph.D. degree on a full-time basis. Learn more about both scholarships HERE.

Applications are due by February 1! Apply online HERE.