A Company You've Probably Never Heard of Is Shutting Down. Garden Centers Know It Well.

Unless you work in horticulture, there’s a good chance you’ve never heard of BFG Supply — but every grower and garden center has, and its shutdown is going to ripple all the way into spring 2027.

BFG has been one of the major distributors serving the greenhouse and garden center industry. It’s one of those businesses that operates mostly behind the scenes, but companies like ours depend on distributors to get many of the things we need to grow and sell plants — pots, fertilizer, growing media, chemicals, irrigation equipment, greenhouse supplies, and garden center products.

Earlier this month, reports began circulating that BFG had stopped accepting new orders and was heading toward liquidation. Greenhouse Grower reported that customers were being told the company was no longer taking orders, while growers and suppliers were already starting to figure out what comes next.

Think about everything that goes into growing a plant before you ever see it at a garden center. We need the plant itself — which may begin as a seed, an unrooted cutting, or a young plant. Then we need a pot. Soil. Fertilizer. A plant tag. Irrigation supplies. Products for controlling insects and disease. Shipping materials. And dozens of other things most people would never think about.

We could buy every one of those products directly from different manufacturers. A distributor makes that far easier by carrying products from many companies and becoming one place where growers and garden centers can buy what they need. When a large distributor suddenly disappears, all of those products still exist — the problem is figuring out who you’re going to buy them from now.

Because for us, spring 2027 has already started. It may only be August, but growers are making production plans, ordering supplies, and figuring out what they’ll need next year. Greenhouse Grower specifically recommended that growers review their open BFG orders now, identify alternative distributors, and make backup plans for critical supplies including pots, growing media, fertilizer, and pest-control products.

You don’t want to discover in March that the pot you planned to use for 20,000 plants isn’t coming.

Probably not. Other distributors will pick up the business, manufacturers will establish new relationships, and growers will find different suppliers. But there’s going to be a lot of work happening behind the scenes between now and next spring.

It’s also a good example of how complicated this industry has become.

Most of that supply chain is invisible when you’re standing in a garden center looking at a beautiful hanging basket. Now the industry has to adjust.

Reference: Greenhouse Grower · Schlegel Greenhouse industry notes