Cultivate’17: the show as the trade press reported it

This domain once hosted the event website for Cultivate’17. It is now an independent reference page. Nothing here is official, and nothing can be booked. Readers looking for the current show should go to AmericanHort’s own Cultivate page or the event site at cultivateevent.org.

What Cultivate was

Cultivate is the annual all-industry gathering of AmericanHort, the association formed on January 1, 2014 when the American Nursery & Landscape Association (ANLA) and OFA – The Association of Horticulture Professionals merged.⁹ FloralDaily noted that the show was formerly known as the OFA Short Course and described it as “the largest all-industry horticulture exposition and convention in North America.”³

Cultivate’17 ran July 15–18, 2017. Education sessions and several tours filled Saturday, July 15. The exhibition floor opened on July 16 and the event closed on July 18.³ It took place at the Greater Columbus Convention Center on North High Street. Garden Center magazine reported that it was the first event to use the convention center’s entire renovated space.^1,10

Scale: a record year

After the show, AmericanHort reported a record 10,016 attendees from 34 countries and nearly 700 exhibitors. The trade show floor had gained 30,000 square feet. AmericanHort President and CEO Ken Fisher said exhibit space and exhibitors were up nearly 12% and overall attendance about 5%.¹ Before the show, Garden Center magazine had reported a sold-out exhibit hall with a waiting list of exhibitors. It added that the extra space let organizers upgrade the New Varieties Zone.⁷

The FloralDaily preview listed what was new on the floor (it had put the exhibitor count at “over 700 companies”):³

• a New Varieties section for plants shown after the spring trials;
• Cultivate Live, a fast-pitch stage where exhibitors demonstrated products;
• a central AmericanHort Member Center, meeting areas along the main aisle, and a business center;
• a new North entrance for registration and check-in, off Goodale and High Street.

Education, keynotes and tours

Landscape Management reported that sessions were coded by professional level (fundamental, intermediate or progressive). Topics included employee engagement, sales and marketing, pollinators, green infrastructure, biocontrols and integrated pest management, production technology, plant varieties, academic research and Horticultural Research Institute updates.⁴ A companion report put the total at more than 100 sessions, grouped by nursery, greenhouse, landscape, retail and interior plantscape.⁵

The Sunday keynote speaker was the author Jon Gordon, drawing on his book The Energy Bus.⁴ The State of the Industry address was given by Ken Fisher, Craig Regelbrugge and chief economist Charlie Hall, PhD.¹ Garden Center magazine’s highlights covered other sessions too: Regelbrugge on genetically engineered petunias and labor, Hall’s economic outlook, a 13-member Women in Horticulture panel, and a talk on vertical farming.⁸

There were eight add-on experiences, including three tours, a biocontrols workshop, a succession planning workshop and the new CareerUP program.⁷ The retail tour on July 15 visited three central Ohio garden centers: Oakland Nurseries (New Albany), Wilson’s Garden Center and Fisher’s Gardens.⁶ More on CareerUP is on its own page.

Awards presented

• Retailers’ Choice Awards. Sponsored by AmericanHort and The Garden Center Group, these honored the best new live and hard goods as chosen by garden retailers. There were 16 winning products from 14 companies, presented on July 17.² Winners included Sakata’s Dragon’s Breath celosia, Syngenta’s Sunfinity sunflower and Proven Winners Color Choice’s Rosa ‘At Last’. The 2017 trends page has the full list.
• Emergent honors. A new award for green-industry professionals under 35. Candidates were picked by a Facebook algorithm based on how they took part in the Emergent Facebook group. The first winners, Lindsey Kerr and Caleb Melchoir, received a trip to CareerUP and Cultivate’17 and $250.¹¹
• Also reported: more than 60 Interior Plantscape Awards, and six new members of the Horticultural Industries Leadership Awards class of 2017.^1,8

What came after

Cultivate’18 was set for July 14–17, 2018, again in Columbus.¹ Cultivate’19 followed on July 13–16, 2019.¹² In April 2020, citing the COVID-19 pandemic, AmericanHort cancelled the in-person 2020 show and replaced it with Cultivate’20 Virtual.¹³ HortiDaily reported that more than 9,000 people registered for the virtual show, about the same as in previous years, and that about half the usual number of exhibitors took part. Cultivate’21 was then planned for July 10–13, 2021.¹⁴ The official event site currently lists Cultivate’27 for July 10–13, 2027, and AmericanHort’s page lists Cultivate’28 for July 15–18, 2028.^15,16

On this site

• CareerUP at Cultivate’17
  The young-professional program from the GenNext community, plus where horticulture careers lead.
• Registration, 2017
  How registration and early-bird pricing worked, as reported, and where registration is handled today.
• US green-industry trade shows
  Organizers, months and cities of the major shows.
• Horticulture careers
  Career paths and BLS median pay.
• Garden trends around Cultivate’17
  Garden Media Group reports and the Retailers’ Choice products.

Sources

1. Garden Center – Cultivate’17 record numbers
2. Garden Center – Cultivate’17 Retailers’ Choice Awards
3. FloralDaily – US horticulture industry gears up for Cultivate’17 (July 14, 2017)
4. Landscape Management – AmericanHort unveils Cultivate keynote speaker, education topics (Jan. 31, 2017)
5. Greenhouse Management – Cultivate’17 professional development
6. Garden Center – Cultivate’17 retail tour
7. Garden Center – Cultivate continues to rise as top trade show and educational event
8. Garden Center – Highlights from Cultivate’17
9. Garden Center – AmericanHort first birthday
10. Wikipedia – Greater Columbus Convention Center
11. Nursery Management – Emergent honors winners revealed
12. Nursery Management – Cultivate’19 early registration
13. HortiDaily – No Cultivate in Columbus in 2020 (April 21, 2020)
14. HortiDaily – Cultivate’20 Virtual welcomed 9,000+ participants (July 20, 2020)
15. Cultivate event site – cultivateevent.org (official)
16. AmericanHort – Cultivate event page (official)