After a cold Mother's Day weekend, Garden Re-Leaf Day is the next great opportunity to get sales going this season.

GTN Bestsellers data shows that while garden centre transactions increased week on week, the cold weather certainly took any potential shine off Mother's Day with sales down 12% on the same week last year and gardening sales such as composts and veg plants down by up to 40% as gardeners stayed in the warm and didn’t venture outside.

That means we need to hang our hats on the next few weeks leading up to Easter and Garden Re-Leaf Day on March 27^th is the next great opportunity to make some noise and give your customers an extra reason to come to your centre.

This special issue of GTN Xtra hopes to inspire you and your team to make the most of the opportunity and get involved, have some fun, raise awareness and raise money for Greenfingers along the way.

To find out more about Garden Re-Leaf Day and how you can join in call the Greenfingers team on 01494 674749 or visit www.greenfingerscharity.org.uk

This time next Friday, you and your customers could be part of a new world record.  At precisely 11:00am on Garden Re-Leaf Day, 27th March, the Greenfingers Team are aiming for the highest number of people doing #Glovies at one time in garden centres accross the country and even across the world.  

Now that is a great reason to encourage plenty of customers in-store on Garden Re-Leaf Day morning.  In the words of our famous #Glovie Magician, that's magic!

To give you no excuse for joining in there was a pair of Greenfingers Glovies delivered with your March issue of Garden Trade News – next Friday is the time to use them if you've not been already.

All you have to do is get your staff and customers taking Glovies – the new Selfies – and post them on your social media activities with the #Glovies to draw attention to your Garden Re-Leaf Day activities.

You can create your own Glovie event to be part of setting a new world Glovie record.  Just record the moment and post on you social media #Glovies or send to trevor.pfeiffer@tgcmc.co.uk and we will add them to the #Glovie Gallery.

Briers, the suppliers of the Greenfingers Glovies, are also offering a super prize for the best Glovie photograph taken.  The best Glovie will win a tablet and 2 tickets for the GIMA Awards in July this year.  To enter the competition send your Glovies to: trevor.pfeiffer@tgcmc.co.uk and post on social media with the hashtag #Glovies

If you would like supplies of the Briers Greenfingers Glovies which raise money for Greenfingers with every sale you should contact sales@briersltd.co.uk or call 01963 269077

As well as Glovies there are a host of event ideas including the Garden Re-Leaf Day Celebrity Gardening Quiz that are suggested on the Garden Re-Leaf Day website: www.gardenreleaf.co.uk so there’s every reason for you to get involved this year.

Glovies are the new phenomenon gaining huge media coverage and set to go viral in the run up to Garden Re-Leaf Day.  All it involves is taking and posting photos featuring the Greenfingers Gloves – the gardening version of a selfie!

The Briers Greenfingers Gloves are already rasing plenty of money for Garden Re-Leaf Day – they are this week's highest new entry in the GTN Garden Products Chart at number 13!  

See this weekend's GTN Xtra for more GTN Bestsellers information, or take out an annual subscription to see the GTN Bestsellers charts in full every week.  Contact harry.sinclair@tgcmc.co.uk to subscribe.

To find out more about Garden Re-Leaf Day and how you can join in call the Greenfingers team on 01494 674749 or visit www.greenfingerscharity.org.uk

The Briers Greenfingers Gloves and the #Glovie world record attempt is one of the easiest ways to get an extra crowd into your centre at 11:00am on Friday 27^th so you should start promoting that now.  

If you would like supplies of the Briers Greenfingers Glovies which raise money for Greenfingers with every sale you should contact sales@briersltd.co.uk or call 01963 269077.

Horticultural celebrities from TV and radio are busy recording questions, wearing Glovies of course, for the 2015 Greenfingers Garden Re-Leaf Day Quiz.

Popular stars of TV and radio Christine Walkden and Chris Beardshaw are currently recording questions for the quiz, along with their BBC Radio 4’s Gardener’s Question Time colleague Eric Robson and BBC weatherman Peter Gibbs. Other well-known gardening experts such as Anne Swithinbank, Bob Flowerdew, Pippa Greenwood, Bunny Guinness, Matthew Biggs and Matthew Wilson (Greenfingers Chairman) are also contributing to the esteemed quiz.

All monies raised from the quiz, with questions this year written by Andy Bunker of Altons Garden Centre and produced in the studios of Garden Radio, will once again go to the Greenfingers ‘Rosy Cheeks’ campaign. The campaign aims to provide much needed gardens for children who spend time in hospices around the UK, along with their families, by creating inspiring gardens and outdoor spaces for them to relax in and enjoy.

The 2015 Greenfingers Garden Re-Leaf Day Quiz is available to all garden centres, gardening societies and other organisations and is the perfect way to participate in the fourth, annual Greenfingers Garden Re-Leaf Day, which takes place on 27th March 2015.

For £100 participants will receive a pack containing all they need to host the quiz – it includes a special CD or Mp3 download of pre-recorded questions (and answers) to play to the audience, everything needed for the picture round, and a bonus pack of fundraising ideas, hints and tips.

Bosworth’s Garden Centre in Burton Latimer were one of the many garden centres that received great interest in last year’s Garden Re-Leaf Day Quiz. Marketing Co-ordinator, Jonathan Biggs, said: “The quiz was so easy to run, our teams were delighted to hear celebrities’ voices asking the questions, and the ‘heads and tails’ game was great fun.”

Garden centres wanting to take part should register on the Greenfingers Garden Re-Leaf Day website, and can also take advantage of free publicity for their events, by filling in the simple form online at www.gardenreleaf.co.uk/register-an-event. Once registered, each individual event appears on the site’s ‘events’ section, and is searchable by area to help the public find their local participating garden centre.

The quiz is just one of many ways to raise funds for Greenfingers Garden Re-Leaf Day. Other retailer participation ideas include in-store sponsored cycle rides, as well as fun family day activities such as making cress heads and sowing Sunflowers – the Home Garden Association’s plant of the year for 2015. Suppliers can also get involved with the Loose Change promotion.

To ensure maximum exposure for your event, make sure to register soon via www.gardenreleaf.co.uk/register-an-event. To order your 2015 Greenfingers Garden Re-Leaf Day quiz pack, explore other opportunities for supporting the 2015 event as a supplier, or participate as a retailer, email info@gardenreleaf.co.uk.

Boyd told GTN Xtra; "I have managed to go through the whole conference without really highlighting Briers support for the Glovies campaign. If it hadn't been for the beer they bought me last November the idea would never have been born!"