We have announced that the location of our 2020 annual conference is to be Bristol. Our annual event will be held at the Mercure Bristol, Grand Hotel from January 26 until 29, 2020. Mike Burks, who is our Chairman Elect for 2020/21 and is helping organise the conference alongside our Chief Executive Iain Wylie, said:…
The start of spring saw sales in outdoor plants soar at garden centres across the country (2019). During March, outdoor plant sales were up 90.85% compared to the same month the previous year (2018), according to our Barometer of Trade (BoT) report. Garden centres across the country have enjoyed a fantastic start to the spring…
We have recently (March, 2019) welcomed Jane Lawler as our new inspector. Jane, who has more than 35 years’ experience in marketing and business development, will be responsible for inspecting member garden centres in North Thames, Scotland and Northern Ireland. We are absolutely thrilled to have Jane join Alyson Haywood, Michael Cole and Gordon…
Garden centres across the country saw a positive start to the year (January, 2019) according to our Barometer of Trade (BoT) report with houseplant and outdoor plant sales dominating. Compared to the same month the previous year (2018), houseplant sales were 16.96% up and outdoor plant sales were up 13.03%. Towards the end of…
We are encouraging our members to put forward their employees for our two Rising Stars programmes taking place throughout the year (2019). We will once again be running our Rising Stars programme, sponsored by Westland Horticulture, focusing on core gardening and our new Catering Rising Stars programme, sponsored by Creed Foodservice in 2019. The application…
Staff at garden centres across the country are celebrating after receiving awards at our annual conference recently (Monday, January 21, 2019). The awards were presented to the member garden centres during a ceremony at Luton Hoo Hotel. Once again the dedication and hard work of our member garden centres has shone through and they are…
Mike Burks, who is the Managing Director of The Gardens Group, was elected as our Chairman Elect for 2020/21 during our annual conference, which took place at Luton Hoo Hotel, Luton. Mike said: “I am greatly looking forward to my chairmanship and am lucky that the GCA has been in excellent hands with current Chairman,…
Sales in outdoor plants continued to dominate other categories for a third month running in December (2018) according to our Barometer of Trade (BoT) report. Sales were up 17.73% compared to the previous year (2017). In a month where Christmas and gift sales tend to dominate the categories, it was really interesting to see that…
Retail Futurist Matthew Brown has been added to the line-up of guest speakers at our annual conference taking place this month (January 20 until 23, 2019). Matthew will be providing best practice and creative insights to delegates in order to help them improve their businesses during his talk at Luton Hoo Hotel, Luton, on Monday,…
There’s still time for garden centre and horticultural industry staff to sign up for a fundraising event being held at our annual conference this Sunday (January 20, 2019) from 4pm. Teams will compete for the Greenfingers Challenge Cup during an afternoon of ‘orse racin’ at Luton Hoo Hotel to raise money for Greenfingers, which creates…