Retailers were eager to talk about what works and what doesn’t when it comes to merchandising, including having a plan when shopping a place like AmericasMart, among many other topics.

• For Julie Hoffman of East River Nursery in Huron, S.D., one challenge is finding ways to display product she finds at market. “We’re not fans of the pre-done displays,” she says, adding it often looks like box store merchandising. “They won’t personalize (the product) for your customers. Vendors need to offer more creative displays.”

• Jordan Graffin of K & W Greenery fully admits she doesn’t think pretty. “I hire someone who thinks pretty. I bring her, and she does the magic in her head,” she says of coming to market. “When (the product) shows up in July, she already knows.”

• Ed Bemis of Bemis Farms Nursery in Spencer, Mass., says a visual merchandiser has to be a mix of artist and engineer. “Some people are 100 percent artistic, some are 100 percent engineering.”

• An effective display is shoppable, says Erik Friedli, Flamingo Road Nursery, Davie, Fla. “If you make it too pretty, they don’t want to shop it. Like the Amish, they always put a flaw in (products) – nothing is perfect. When merchandising, I put in that flaw so people don’t feel bad shopping it.”

• Some displays are harder to set up than others. With chemical displays, Knupper Nursery in Palatine, Ill., has two rows of every product.

• Separating the organics from the chemicals and having one product for each purpose has worked for Bruce Gescheider at Moana Nursery in Reno, Nev.

• Friedli says he gets some chemicals with pretty packaging out of that section and into gifts or plant material. “If it has pink packaging, I’ll display it with pink flamingos. I group more by color.”

• Berns Garden Center in Middletown, Ohio, considers chemicals a seasonal product and has them displayed in the main shop near the checkout. In August the area becomes gifting.

• When it comes to signage, Richard Bursch of Lakeview Nurseries in Lunenburg, Mass., found it was more inexpensive for him to have a local shop preprint his signs. Then he puts them on plastic backing to withstand the elements.

• To avoid insinuating something about the plants when cross-merchandising pest or disease products, (i.e. fungicide next to the roses) use a sign that says “Use what we use.”