Nurseries & Garden Centers

It depends on your path. The 6500 Series is our wide-bay gothic gutter-connected line — strong for wholesale and bedding-plant production at scale, with room to add bays. The 3600 Series fits high-volume production where gothic arch ventilation and budget point here. The 7500 Series is the gable line for retail polish, engineered customer-present structures, and multi-bay expansion. Basic or seasonal production often starts in the cold-frame tier (1100-type). Your rep helps you match series to how you actually operate; the configurator lets you price any listed series now.

If you run both retail and production, Conley's typical recommendation is separate structures — not one hybrid house. Spring brings the conflict: customers browsing while staff water, stage, and move inventory. A retail house optimized for flow and appearance and a production house optimized for bench density each do their job better than a single compromise building. Some growers zone one large house; others build production first and add retail later. Your rep can help plan phased layouts.

Rolling benches are the biggest lever. They eliminate permanent aisles and can increase usable bench area compared to fixed-aisle layouts. Match bench systems to container sizes, plan vertical space for hanging baskets on retail paths, and choose bay width for your workflow. The bench cost guide and bench calculators on this site size rolling and stationary systems with the same logic as our configurators.

Most nursery greenhouses need ventilation (exhaust fans and HAF fans for air movement), heating for frost protection and season extension, and benching. Evaporative cooling matters in hot climates or for heat-sensitive crops. Shade — fixed cloth or motorized internal systems — helps during peak summer. Production houses leaning on passive ventilation may prioritize roll-up sides and ridge vents over fan-and-pad. The mix depends on climate, crops, and how much of the year you run.

Flexible layouts and the right equipment mix carry most of the load. Portable or rolling benches let you reconfigure as inventory changes. Heating extends the front of the season; shade and cooling extend the back. Some nurseries overwinter stock that would otherwise be a loss. Equipment choices up front determine how much of the calendar the greenhouse is productive.

Polycarbonate coverings — particularly multi-wall options — give a clean, professional look that holds up over time. They diffuse light evenly, which helps plants and looks good to customers. Film coverings work for production-only houses but tend to look less finished in retail settings. If customer perception matters, polycarbonate is usually the right choice.

If propagation and young plants are your primary focus, see our Propagation & Young Plants industry page. Many nursery operations include a propagation phase, but liner-focused buyers usually need different sizing and uniformity priorities than retail or finish-crop production.