In This Issue
"Every single thing we do is driven at the moment by trying to manage the risk to customers and staff"
Four tips to maximise your garden centre on a budget
Hillier to Open New Garden Centre at Syon Park Estate
British nurseries are amongst the most eco-friendly on the planet, not that you’d know from watching Gardeners’ World
Restaurant gets star billing at redeveloped centre
GTN's Greatest Christmas Awards are back!
Change at the top for family-run Highfield Garden World
Sales jump by 20% to record mid-November levels
Plants are selling at record levels during Lockdown 2
Container issues continue to escalate at UK ports 
HTA launches Sustainability Roadmap to guide UK horticulture towards leading edge of sustainable business practice
The Most Jumperful Time of the Year Fundraiser starts tomorrow!
Work starts on site for largest Dobbies in South West
Possible Christmas tree shortage due to Danish mink cull
Henry Bell clinches deal with Future Marketing Group
Janssens Greenhouses – over 70 years of heritage
Garden centre gets new appearance thanks to Smiemans
GTN November issue now on-line
Get your own copy of GTN Xtra
Garden centre customers find happiness in houseplants in October
Two-thirds more gardening this Autumn – Wow!
End of season pot bargains and houseplant care star
HTA reacts to new December tier arrangements
Gonks fly through tills as Christmas sales jump up
A Christmas feast for your garden birds
The best of last week's
A Perfect Storm Hits the Garden Market
Sales fall by 5.5% in Lockdown 2
“The Smart Show must go on…line!”
Five creative ways to enhance your takeaway service during lockdown
Profits up at Notcutts in year to February 2020
Garden Centre Photo Tours
Haskins Snowhill re-opens after £15m re-vamp
British Garden Centres open their 58th centre at Thatcham
Barton Grange Christmas 2020 - Exclusive GTN Xtra Photo Tour
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Buy your subscription to the GTN Bestsellers printed weekly newsletter
All the latest news from the world of pet products
Back to business for industry exhibitions
Tong donates stock to South Yorkshire dog rescue charity
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British nurseries are amongst the most eco-friendly on the planet, not that you’d know from watching Gardeners’ World

Peter Seabrook is sick and tired of our industry being critised, particularly by TV gardening presenters. So in The Sun at the weekend he put forward this case in answer to the critics:

 

From The Sun Gardening pages, Saturday 28th November 2020.

 

The British nursery industry is one of the most eco-friendly on the planet, not that you’d know from watching Gardeners’ World.

 

Britain has some of the most efficient, high-tech, environmentally and sustainability aware nurseries in the world. They are using biofuel boilers for heating, in some cases growing acres of coppice willow to grow their own wood chips.

 

These greenhouses’ heating pipes can have the water flow reversed in the day to remove excessive heat and convey it into insulated reservoirs, ready to return into the houses again on cold nights. Shading screens also protect plants from scorching sun during the day and can be drawn at night to reduce radiation heat loss.

 

The staging upon which the plants are grown in such glasshouses is on rollers to reduce the number of paths and increase plant populations. These feature flood benches to conserve water and irrigate plants from below, reducing the incidence of soft rot diseases. Rainwater is collected from roofs and cleaned through sand and reed beds, with slow-release fertilisers reducing nitrate leaching.

 

Pests and diseases are controlled biologically, reducing the need for pesticides, while recyclable materials are now widely used for pots and carry trays. This efficiency, coupled with remarkable skill, has resulted in some plant prices being lower than they were 20 years ago for better-quality plants.

 

It should come as no surprise, therefore, that the trade is incensed that a TV gardening presenter recently wrote: “We should not be buying cheap, mass-produced, disposable plants. We should either grow them ourselves or buy them locally from small producers.”

 

No mention, of course, that most small local producers buy their seedlings and cuttings from these mass producers, who also supply home gardeners via mailorder specialists with literally hundreds of millions of young plants, so we can grow our own every year. Indeed, the BBC’s Gardeners’ World actually uses mass-produced plants in its own garden!

 

In 1976, there were just three staff making this series – a producer/director, their PA and presenter who recorded two 30-minute programmes in a day. Fee for the presenter was £75 per programme, which also included all research and answering viewers’ letters. The audience was four times larger than it is today and presumably the mail considerably more.

 

Why does today’s programme require five researchers? And why are there so many people named when the credits roll at the end of each episode? Yet another mystery is why horticulture shows come off the air in the autumn, when gardening certainly continues and gardeners have more time on dark evenings to tune in.

 

There used to be a gardening spot on BBC1’s daytime show Pebble Mill At One from September to May, and I do not remember them once running out of subject material. It must be time that a professionally trained horticulturist, with commercial experience and gardening skills, was recruited to rebuild the reputation of Gardeners’ World.

 

 

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Joe Denham
I couldn't agree more. Well said Peter.