GCA reveals their best garden centres in England and Wales

The Garden Centre Association has revealed the best garden centre members in each region following the 2018 inspections. Read more - members only

GCA Inspector Roger Crookes and Mike Lind with staff from The Old Railway Line

The winners of the GIMA Awards 2018 are……

Neudorff’s VineWeevilFree - Nematodes scoops the GIMA Sword of Excellence for best product, whilst Woodlodge has for the first time been name the GCA Supplier of the Year at the GIMA Awards. Read more - members only

The Neudorff team collect the Sword of Honour

Never has the outlook been so unpredictable for growers

The aisles of a busy HTA National Plant Show hummed with discussions about Wyevale, Brexit, technology, early wastage and the shortage of hardy nursery stock. Read more - members only

Brett Avery on Far Plant's busy stand

Ornamental plant nurseries will continue to be exempt from business rates

A court case in 2015 opened up a potential loophole in the law which would bring nurseries into line with paying business rates. The Government has decided this week that this will not happen. Read more - members only

Ball Colegrave

Suppliers experience bonanza order intake after holiday weekend

As sales take off at garden centres pressure falls on a supply chain already impacted by the fire at Gardman. Gardenforum checks stock availability. Read more - members only

Don’t let retailers bully you says the Gamekeeper turned Poacher

Former head of Scotts Miracle-Gro, Martin Breddy, tells how different it is to be a retailer now that he is MD of Squire’s Garden Centres. Read more - members only

Martin Breddy

Perennial revives annual Festival Dinner

Perennial is reviving its traditional Festival Dinner, a fantastic evening of fundraising, with the help of partners and supporters from across the UK horticulture industry. Read more - members only

March, “That was one tough month” 

Sales may be down +/- 15% on last year, but garden centres are confident they can catch up. 2013 was worse. But as one garden centre owner explained, “A season normally consists of 7 strong weeks, so we can still recover but we need those strong weeks to start!” Read more - members only

2 interest rate rises forecast for 2018

Economist Roger Martin-Fagg forecast 2 interest rate rises and volatile exchange rates for 2018 as we head for a soft Brexit. The Government will have to consider a property tax. Read more - members only

Roger Martin-Fagg

Seabrook urges Garden Centres to back rose festival

Veteran Sun columnist and broadcaster, Peter Seabrook has called on garden centres to back a National Rose Festival Week in the 3rd or 4th week of June. Read more - members only

Peter Seabrook

A round-up of 2017, a year dominated by Brexit and Xylella

2017 started with a flourish but lost momentum and settled to be an OK year. Suppliers worried about Brexit, the living wage, higher costs and Wyevale. Retailers and growers worried about Xylella. Takeover activity reached new peaks among suppliers, but no major garden centres changed hands. The industry said goodbye to some old friends. Read our review – (open to non-subscribers). Read more - open to all

Plants and gardening sales fell in October

Lower plant and gardening sales means that October income was level with last year according to the latest figures from the GCA. Plus, we look at gardening totals for 2017. Read more - members only

Choice members look forward to £1.5m rebate

Last week’s 3 day conference and trade show, held by Choice Marketing, eclipsed the HTA Futures conference that it clashed with, by drawing 160 delegates. 90 suppliers exhibited at the trade show. Read more - members only

Despite the boom of March and April the season evens itself out

Declining gifts sales and slow restaurant growth has knocked the performance of bigger garden centres according to the half year figures from the GCA. Read more - members only

Summer displays at Bents

Wayfair becomes an important route to market for Solex exhibitors

The chat at Solex centered around topics like: Wayfair, empty warehouses and price rises. And has 2017 really been a vintage year? Read more - members only

Woven and wood mixed from 4SO

June sales were higher than April's

 “Don't panic!” said the old hands when sales were frozen in March and the daffodils had hardly broken ground, “It will even itself out by the end of June, it always does,” and they were right according to latest figures from the GCA. Read more - members only

Percentage de/increase in sales over last year by month

Somehow, we clawed it all back

By the end of June most Garden Centres have clawed back the sales lost in March and April. There is praise for the great support from suppliers and fantastic effort by staff. Read more - members only

Garden centres enjoyed a bumper May

The Beast from the East was forgotten as gardeners spent more in garden centres last month. Read more - members only

At the end of April garden centres were -10% down for the year

By the end of May, many garden centres look set to make up what looked like an unbridgeable -10.5% shortfall in sales at the end of April. Read more - members only

Squire's at Twickenham looking good

20% back in 7 days. We could do this!! (Updated)

The GCA figures for March are dismal, but after a week of better weather the mood has changed as a message from Stewarts Garden Centres shows.  Figures from Dobbies and Wyevale have been added. Read more - members only

Cafe and Food Hall at Blue Diamond's East Bridgford GC

GIMA hears how to take the risk out of FX deals

Inflation is to fall, interest rates and wages are to rise. GIMA hears now is a good time for exporters, and how to reduce the currency risk with foreign exchange specialists.  Read more - members only

Matthew Crate

Gender Pay reporting reveals interesting differences

Recently published figures show that the gender pay gap in garden retailers is generally smaller than the UK average. However, there are some interesting differences between the garden centre groups. Read more - members only

Wyevale identifies 2018 gardening trends

Wyevale, the country’s largest specialist garden centre group with 147 stores, has published a report on the latest gardening trends revealed by a survey of 15,000 garden lovers. Read more - members only

Fairways, Bents and Smart Garden take GCA’s top awards

Bents has pipped Barton Grange and Webbs of Wychbold to be the GCA Destination Garden Centre of the Year. Smart Garden has regained the prestigious Supplier of the Year cup. Read more - members only

Garden Centre of the Year - Fairways Garden Centre, Ashbourne

Christmas trading patterns have changed

Christmas buying is getting earlier and overall sales have dropped in many centres, not helped by snow on the peak live tree weekend, closing some centres. Despite this, overall garden centre sales are up for 2017. Read more - members only

Snow affected Christmas Tree sales

Bents crown their 80th year with the GCA Christmas display award

Bents have wrestled the GCA Christmas Display award back from Barton Grange, while Castle Gardens in Sherborne prove invincible yet again in the category for smaller garden centres. Read more - members only

Castle Gardens Christmas Display

New National Home Improvement Week will clash with Garden Re-Leaf Day

BHETA has created a new National Home Improvement Week for the home and garden industry on dates in the middle of March that clash with Garden Re-Leaf Day. Read more - members only

Syngenta to be the new sponsor of Cultivation Street

Syngenta and their Calliope brand are to sponsor David Domoney’s community gardening campaign, Cultivation Street, which adds a mentor scheme in 2018. Read more - members only

Glee reveals the short list of top garden industry buyers

Glee has opened the vote to find the UK's best garden buyers. They have revealed a shortlist of 25 buyers across 5 categories: independent garden centres, multiples, DIY / Builder Merchants, online and other. Read more - members only

Westland and Smart Garden take the top GIMA awards

The top GIMA awards went to Westland for Product of the Year and Smart Garden for Supplier of the Year. Briers took the export achievement award. Read more - members only

Westland hold the sword of homour for best product

To see earlier stories - Look in the News Archive