The sunshine of Saturday 8^th March saw the two newest members of the growing British Garden Centre empire open. Gloucester Garden Centre and Hieghley Gate near Morpeth, both had their official launches yesterday.

284 miles and 4 ½ hour drive apart, Garden Trade News attended both launches. Queues of customer were already forming at Gloucester Garden Centre by 8.00am on Saturday morning, 2 hours before the opening with the official ribbon cutting by TV gardener, David Domoney.

David was joined by members of the BGC Family including Lyn who has worked at the site for 35 years and Ian who has seen 28 years service. Both have been there through the management of the centre by Jardinerie, Blooms, Wyevale and Dobbies and along with Mandy and colleagues in the completely refurbished Gardeners Retreat restaurant all agreed that joining the British Garden Centres Family is the best yet. Ian added that it is 20 years ago this weekend since he was involved in the ribbon cutting at the centre when the new Blooms development was completed.

Staff from nearby Brockworth Garden Centre, which became part of the BGC family back in 2018 when Wyevale first started reducing the size of their estate were down to help colleagues with the opening, and many of the staff, kept on from Dobbies days have been up for training, Amber the till supervisor said.

Many staff have been TUPE’d over from Dobbies, and have been working flat out over the past five weeks since the lease was agreed with the landlord to get the centre ready for this weekend. “Building display stands, merchandising stock, painting restaurant walls, screwing legs on our lovely new furniture and learning how to work our fantastic new carvery servery are all tasks we have willing taken on these past few weeks. It is just lovely to have a company that cares about the business, the staff and customers after the last few years we have had”.

Matthew Urbanowicz, the Centre Manager, said “it is great to have my centre back and be building my team again. Life got very tough with Dobbies, and we knew things were not going the right way. It was very unsettling for the team and we lost a few, but the effort and energy they have all put in over recent weeks has been fantastic, I am so proud. What we have all pulled together and achieved in the past five weeks is amazing.”

Suppliers have been busy too, with many new stands and lots of product flowing in. Keen offers and powerful merchandising is very much the form, and good introductory offers will soon see gaps on shelves and dump bins needing restocking. Strong sales were evident, customers queuing to get in and queuing to get out through the tills with trollies loaded with plants, compost and everything gardening.

Concessions, many also retained on site from the previous management, some new and others expanding too. The Works joined in the opening ceremony, Cotton Traders, Tiger Buildings were all looking forward optimistically to levels of trade and the Crazy Golf concession was already doing great trade.

Customers were also happy, one told GTN Xtra “we moved from Thornbury near Bristol, where we used to have a super garden centre that went seriously downhill when they were taken over, so when we moved to the south side of Gloucester we were recommended by our new neighbours to go up to Brockworth that British Garden Centres had recently taken over. It was lovely, and the staff were all so helpful, so when we heard a couple of weeks ago that the same family were going to running this one we were very happy. It saves us a 10 mile journey up the road and we have a lovely café too which was the only thing we did miss at Brockworth!”

Another customer said: “I have been a professional gardener all my working life, what I have seen so far is wonderful and I wish the Family all the luck in the world.”

See our photo tour of Gloucester Garden Centre below