Case Study: Hickory Home and Garden achieves secure growth and ransomware recovery with ECi Spruce

Spruce Software Helps Keep Garden Center Growing and Secure after a Cyber Attack

Hickory Home and Garden, a North Carolina garden center, had been using ECi Spruce business management software for more than 10 years to support its growing retail, contractor, and landscaping operations. As sales and product lines expanded, the company also faced a serious challenge when a ransomware attack encrypted its servers and backups, threatening business continuity and year-end close.

ECi Spruce quickly moved Hickory Home and Garden from its on-premise system to the cloud-based version, restoring operations by the following Monday and loading all data back online. The switch improved security, eliminated the need for manual updates and maintenance, and gave the team greater confidence against cyber threats while helping them continue scaling; over five years, sales more than doubled with only three additional full-time employees, and new categories like power tools and seed/fertilizer grew sharply.

Hickory Home and Garden

Aaron Poland

Veteran