Open, honest and candid: Q&A with garden center owner Matt Stueck

For many businesses, trade secrets are par for the course. But in the green industry, the culture is different.

And Matt Stueck, owner of Suburban Lawn & Garden, says that’s a good thing, with enough business and good ideas to go around. In this Q&A, Stueck shares why no topic should be off-limits in discussion with fellow garden center owners.

Editor’s note: Matt Stueck will speak alongside Paul Abugattas, executive director of Colonial Gardens/DCA Outdoor, and Jonah Nelson, CEO and owner of Family Tree Nursery, at the 2025 Garden Center Conference & Expo from 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 7, during the panel, “How to Create a Third Place: Cafes, meaningful experiences, zoning considerations and more.” During the talk, he’ll answer questions about how he runs his business and what has worked well for him. Visit gardencenterconference.com for more information and to register.

Lauren Cohen: Tell me a bit about your career and what you’re doing now.

Matt Stueck: I’m a second-generation owner of Suburban Lawn & Garden in Kansas City. My parents started the business in 1965, and the genesis of the business is that my dad has been mowing lawns since he was 11, and his entrepreneurial spirit and hard work has grown the lawnmowing business into sort of the multi-faceted green industry business that it is today.

I have a degree in political science from American University in Washington, D.C., so while I grew up in the business and have done almost every job at Suburban there is over the years, I don’t have a degree in horticulture like a lot of people assume.

LC: What led you to want to take over the business, and what makes you passionate about what you do?

MS: I picked up (Michael) Dirr’s “Manual of Woody Landscape Plants” in the summer of 1995, maybe my sophomore or junior year of college, and just read it almost cover to cover — which, if anyone knows that book, it’s just literally an encyclopedia of plants. It’s got a great introduction and talks a lot about how plants are classified, and I just got really into that, and that really changed my focus from social sciences to business.

In our business, you say you have either a passion for plants, or you don’t. And that doesn’t mean you can’t succeed in the business, but it certainly led me to change my career path.

LC: What’s the subject of your upcoming Garden Center Conference & Expo panel?

MS: It’s going to be a free-for-all panel discussion amongst the garden center owners, managers, general managers of the tour stop locations. (Editor's note: The tour is sold out.) So, we’re looking forward to fielding questions from the moderator and hopefully also fellow garden center owners to answer some questions and bring up some discussions about what it’s like to run a garden center in today’s world.

LC: Are there any specific topics that you’re hoping to bring up?

MS: Selfishly, I hope to do a lot more listening than talking. I know that’s probably not a good thing as a panelist, but I really enjoy getting the feedback. I would love some candid questions about why we run our store the way we do and find out what kinds of questions people are asking about and things that are on their minds. Because when someone’s asking a question about something, maybe safety or product selection or flow of the store, and they ask you, “Why did you think of that?” sometimes, you don’t even realize those are things that are relevant. And so just by asking questions, people give you insight into how we could run our business better.

And, of course, I always love getting feedback from customers, but for other people who own and work in our industry, their opinions really matter a lot — good, bad or indifferent.

LC: Who is your target audience that you’re hoping will come to the panel? Do you think garden center owners will benefit the most, or is there another group you’re thinking of?

MS: I would definitely say our discussion would be good for anybody in the business. I enjoy watching panel discussions from other businesses, whether it’s food service or other retail. I know what I enjoyed about seeing other panel discussions like that in the past, and so I’m hoping ours will do the same in that regard. Any business owner, but especially people who own green industry businesses, I think would find it interesting.

LC: What key takeaways do you hope people will leave with after coming to the panel?

MS: Carrying on the tradition of our industry’s reputation as being very open, honest and candid, whereas a lot of businesses, there’s a lot of secrets of the trade and information that isn’t shared.

I’m hoping people see that in Kansas City, I think it’s no different than other garden centers, where everybody talks openly, there’s enough business and good ideas to go around and nobody feels like there’s any topic that’s off-limits, so to speak.

LC: Since this is your first time attending the Garden Center Conference & Expo, what are you most looking forward to, and what does the community at conferences like this mean to you?

MS: It’s a great time of year to have a conference for our industry because it’s a very slow month, as everyone will see when they come to Kansas City and tour our stores. These are the dog days of summer here — August is back-to-school time, so people’s discretionary income is not focused on the world of gardening and lawn, but there’s always something to glean, even though there’s not going to be a lot of customers there, per se.

But it also means it’s a great time for our staff to attend a show, so we will have a large contingent of people going to the conference — all managers especially. This will be a good opportunity for people to get an idea of what else is going on in the industry and broaden their horizons.

We’re very good at what we do here, and our staff is very good at what they do here, but I’m really excited that they’re going to get an opportunity to meet other people who do what they do in other cities across the United States.

LC: Do you have anything else you want to add?

MS: If anyone has any questions about what they should do in Kansas City, where they should stay or if they have any other questions about being here, I would be happy to help them feel at home when they come.

Editor’s Note: This interview has been lightly edited for style, length and clarity.

Lauren Cohen is an editorial intern with the GIE Media Horticulture Group