How Smith's Gardentown cultivates creativity as a Texas retail grower

Photos © Brian Hutson / Elevated Content

Michael Fiore’s discerning eye for new varieties and his ironclad relationship with vendors help preserve the 76-year history of Smith’s Gardentown, a Texas-based independent grower retailer.

As the fourth-generation owner, Fiore ensures the viability of the business his great-grandfather founded, his grandfather modernized and his mother and uncles grew and maintained. They provided a bedrock on which he’s building a fresh and innovative business. The success of that model is due in part to benches full of new varieties, which Fiore often discovers at trial sites such as Young’s Plant Farm in Alabama, Metrolina Greenhouses in North Carolina and the University of Georgia. Those southern trials provide Fiore with plant species that are more conducive to the Texas heat his customers experience for several months out of the year.

Because Smith’s grows about 90% of the annuals and perennials it sells, the stakes are even higher to select the best new performers each year. “We are very big on the new varieties,” Fiore says. “If I can get it a year before Lowe’s and Home Depot has it, I’m all for it. And that’s getting harder and harder to do each year, but I love having all the new stuff.”

Besides perusing trial reports and visiting trial gardens in person, Fiore also relies on Jacki Kempfer, his sales rep from Express Seed Company. The two have a rapport that allows Kempfer to sometimes “shoehorn” a new plant into Smith’s production, Fiore jokes.

“She is amazing — the whole Express Seed team is good to us,” he says. “Jacki will tell me, ‘Hey, you need this plant.’ And if I hesitate, she tells me she’s ordering it and we’re going to grow it. And it turns out to be the right decision almost every time.” One of those “shoehorned” plants was partridge feather (Tanacetum sp.), a heat and drought tolerant groundcover that originated in Turkey.

“The foliage is silvery and feathery, and it’s a short little groundcover with small yellow flowers that looked dainty to me,” he explains. “I thought it would just burn up in the Texas summer. But she assured me it was perfect for our area, and I didn’t believe her. So, I put it in my yard first, and it performed extremely well. It was even evergreen for me. That’s the most recent one that she got me to try.”

But with those new plants has come a shift in container size. Smith’s no longer grows anything in a six-pack, and Fiore has started transitioning away from 4-inch material.

“We still grow some of the basic material from seed, like periwinkles, marigolds, begonias and impatiens, in a 4-inch, since that’s the stuff people put out in masses,” he says. “But things that we used to grow in a six-pack we changed to a 4-inch. And a lot of things that we used to grow in a 4-inch, we’re now growing in a 4.5-inch, quarts or a 6-inch.”

Annuals are Smith’s top seller, with about a 70-30 split between annuals and perennials. But perennials sales are increasing, Fiore notes.

“Annuals are our moneymakers, and we’re known for having really nice annuals that we grow here. But the perennials category has been growing like crazy. Now, we haven’t seen a decline in annuals. It’s just that perennials have been coming up,” he says. “I think customers are seeing (the perennials message) everywhere. And a lot of the younger demographics want perennials more so than annuals. There’s still the big push for pollinator plants, and a lot of people want sustainability. They don’t want to replant year after year, so perennials have been growing in popularity because of that.”

Besides using historical data to forecast sales, the team makes note of what sold quickly, what didn’t sell and what performed well. “Right after the spring rush, usually by June, we’re placing orders for the following spring, so that way it’s still fresh on our minds,” he adds.

How Smith's Gardentown connects with customers

Fiore isn’t just wild about new annuals and perennials. He’s on the hunt each year for new poinsettia varieties, and his customers count on him to offer unusual types and colors. Red is still the No. 1 seller, but in 2024, they grew 32 poinsettia varieties.

One of Smith’s largest events coincides with poinsettia season. Around Thanksgiving, when the production greenhouses are wall-to-wall with poinsettias, Smith’s hosts an open house. And everything is “open,” even the growing houses.

“We do production tours and bring people back here to see how everything is grown. We also have racks set up with a sample of every variety we’re growing,” he says. “We usually have some sort of live music, whether that’s the youth symphony orchestra or somebody playing guitar in the greenhouse. We have hors d’oeuvres and coffee and drinks. And then every hour or so, we have the poinsettia tours. I put on a microphone and show people how we plant everything. We show them the potting room, how we do the production, and then show all the different poinsettia varieties.”

Those production tours help connect consumers to the realities of production, something most of them knew nothing about.

“Anytime I can get someone on a production tour, they’re usually hooked for life. They say, ‘I’m going to buy all my plants from Smith’s now,’ because they see everything. I go into detail about what soil we use, why we use it, why it’s better for our plants, how we plant them and how we care for them from start to finish. And throughout the year when we do classes, I’ll invite people to do a production tour. And they always tell me, ‘I had no idea that all this goes into growing a plant. I thought you just put a seed in a pot and that’s it.’ They feel like they got some insider information.”

The 90-second connection on social media

Fiore’s dedication to educating the gardening consumer helped fuel his commitment to social media. Those lessons have garnered Smith’s a big following on TikTok and Facebook — with growth on Instagram and YouTube — where Fiore hosts a video each day.

“We’re about to hit 250,000 followers on TikTok,” he says. “Those numbers are not from luck. We have been consistent for years. It’s been almost three-and-a-half years of posting daily on social media to get to where we are today. It’s not from ‘going viral,’ it’s not paid posts. It’s organic growth. And it’s just from the work we’ve put in.”

Things really turned a corner when he hired Felicia Garza as social media manager, he recalls.“She’s the consistent, steady one. I’m the creative one, and without her, I am not consistent. Before I hired her, I would make videos when inspiration struck. That might have been two times one week with a three-week pause.”

Garza was a regular customer and a stay-at-home mom who was always in the garden and sharing her love of plants on her own channels.

“So, I said, ‘Hey, you’re already gardening. You’re already creating content on your own time. How about I pay you to come and help us out with content?’ And she started part-time. My mom was the owner of the business at the time, and I told her, ‘I’m going to hire this lady, and she’s going to be on her phone all day. You’re going to have to trust me on this.’”

With Garza’s help, Fiore has found the formula for a successful social media video.

“For us, the sweet spot is about 90 seconds, but it depends on the topic. If it’s something interesting, both by words and by visual interest, people will stay longer,” he explains. “TikTok can be savage. If you don’t have a good first few seconds in a video, you will not get traction on that platform. We learned how to get people hooked on those videos right away ... In reality, that 90-second video took us five or 10 minutes to film, and it’s all done through editing.”

Fiore says editing and keeping it short is a vital lesson for anyone in the green industry making videos. “If you spend the first 15 seconds just saying hello, who you are, where you’re located and what you want to talk about, you haven’t done anything substantive, and you won’t get the views.”

Fiore also does a Facebook Live video every Saturday morning — something he tried on a whim during an early spring morning long before the garden center opened for the day.

“I fired up my phone, and I started walking around saying, ‘Hey, check out the Sunpatiens and the coleus we just put out.’ And people latched onto that,” he says. “They joined because it was Saturday morning, and they were drinking their coffee or whatever, just scrolling on their phones. And they came in and asked if I was going to do that again next week.”

Fiore said the videos aren’t a chore, although it can be a challenge in the dead of winter.

“But everywhere around us in this industry is beautiful, inspirational and interesting things, so there’s no reason for us to not have content every day,” he says.

Generational inspiration

Fiore and his brother, who is a minority owner and not part of the daily operations, purchased the business from their mom in 2024. As the fourth-generation owner, Fiore’s challenges and opportunities differ from the previous generations, such as offering company benefits and providing a work-life balance.

“Something that is a newer concept than when my mom and uncles ran the business is that a lot of the younger employees want a purpose. They want a vision, and they want flexibility. Being able to take time off when they want to take time off, that was unheard of for the previous generation. As an employer, you have to figure out where you can be flexible and where you have to say, ‘No, it’s April, and we’re locking in right now.’ You’ve got to find that balance.”

Fiore is grateful for how hard the previous generations worked to build a company with “an outstanding reputation.”

“We’re always expanding in some way, but we’re always building off the great foundation the previous generation established,” he says.

He had to get creative with ways to offer benefits. One way is the Smith’s Cares Fund, an emergency relief fund for employees. “We set money aside every month in a separate bank account, and that money belongs to the employees. There’s an application process and a board that reviews the applications. So, if somebody has a financial emergency, whether that’s a veterinary bill, a medical bill, a home emergency, a car breaks down, whatever it is, they can apply.”

The employees elected a board that consists of four coworkers. Fiore is not on the board; he gives the board the independence to make the decisions. It’s something he believes the previous generations would appreciate.

Some of the lessons passed down during the past 76 years deal primarily with forming good relationships with customers, of course, but also with vendors and lenders, Fiore says.

“When you have those good relationships with your vendors and you take care of them, then they’ll take care of you when you need it as well. And having a relationship with the bank is really good, because having such a volatile business, you never know when you need the bank.”

Fiore’s grandfather experienced the importance of those meaningful and trusting relationships after a tornado devastated the town, including the garden center, in 1970. The store and the greenhouses were leveled, and when the company’s vendors heard about it, they showed up to support the Smith family. They brought products, and they helped clear debris. The local banker also showed up and asked Fiore’s grandfather what he needed. After surveying the damage, he answered, “I don’t know. About a million dollars.” And the banker simply answered, “Done.” In a matter of days, there was a $1 million line of credit available to Fiore’s grandfather.

The previous generations also instilled quality and helpfulness, he says.

“Our motto is ‘Healthy Plants, Helpful People,’ so we live by those lessons,” he says.

Kelli Rodda is editorial director of Greenhouse Management magazine. Contact her at krodda@gie.net.