Staff at garden centres across the Wales and West region are celebrating after scooping awards during a presentation yesterday (Tuesday, August 24 2021) evening at Pugh’s Garden Centre The Vale in Wenvoe. Monkton Elm Garden Centre was awarded Garden Centre of the Year in the Destination Garden Centre (DGC) category and the Old Railway Line…
Our members now have access to a new module on identifying hazardous plants through our Garden Retail Online Workshops (GROW) learning platform (August 2021). The ‘Poisonous Plants’ module highlights indoor and outdoor plants that are dangerous to humans and pets. Antony Snow, our Instructional Designer for GROW, said: “We’re delighted to be offering this new…
Our members nationwide will find out who has come out on top in our annual inspections this year at regional award meetings taking place later this month (August 2021). We’re encouraging our garden centre members to attend the event in their area to celebrate the efforts and achievements of their teams during this difficult year.…
We’ve recently released our Barometer of Trade (BoT) for June (2021) revealing furniture and BBQ sales were up by 94.88% year-to-date. The report also shows a year-to-date increase in 11 out of 13 categories proving that garden centre demand has been positive at the start of the summer. Iain Wylie, our GCA Chief Executive, explained:…
Farm shops and houseplant sales dominated at garden centres this May (2021) according to our recent Barometer of Trade (BoT) report. As centres in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland reopened mid-May in 2020, this report used figures from 2019 and reveals farm shop sales were up 90.24% in May 2021. May has always been…
We are fully supportive of the need to remove peat from amateur horticulture (May 2021). We support the Growing Media Taskforce statement and will be working alongside our colleagues in its aims. There is a need to assist gardeners in making the transition from peat-based growing media and we believe this is possible by 2025, subject to the…
The team at Woodlodge Products is celebrating this week after being presented with our 2020 Associate of the Year Award Members were asked to vote for the supplier, a GCA Associate member, which had done the most for their business and the industry through support, service and innovation last year. Woodlodge Products’ Director, Michael Wooldridge…
This month (April 2021) Squire’s Garden Centre Reigate has been presented with our Garden Retail Online Workshops (GROW) award for completing the most GROW training modules last year (2020). The award was first introduced in 2015 to encourage our members to utilise the programme by rewarding an individual garden centre whose employees complete, on average,…
Our Barometer of Trade (BoT) report for February has revealed furniture and barbecue sales at garden centres saw a 79.17% year to date increase during the month (2021). Although Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish centres were closed in February, as essential retailers, English centres remained open and recorded positive sales in seven of the 13…
As part of our pledge to continue working on environmental challenges this year (2021), we have teamed up with Planet Mark to help evolve our inspection process. We are enhancing the process, with initial changes in 2021, and will work with our inspectors and Planet Mark to embed environmental factors within the whole process for future…