M&S hospitality chief Jason Danciger has joined The Garden Centre Group as food and beverage director. He starts on 16 December, in the middle of the Christmas rush.

He has been Head of Hospitality at Marks & Spencer for the past five years, most recently adding Fresh Counters to his portfolio. Whilst there he had overall responsibility for more than 300 cafes and 80 casual dining eateries in the UK as well as 40 international eateries.

He had previously been an advisory board member of the London International Wine Fair, director of food for Spirit Group, and commercial director for Chez Gerard. In his early career he worked as general manager of the National Gallery restaurant and as a chef de cuisine for nine years under the Roux Brothers.

Kevin Bradshaw, CEO of The Garden Centre Group, said: “Jason has a strong pedigree in food and beverage management. I am delighted to welcome him and very excited about the opportunities that lie ahead in making our restaurant offering the best it can be.”

Watch out for a special GTN Xtra e-newsletter tomorrow (Monday 18th November) with all the downloads you need to get your customers voting for The Greatest Garden Centre at Christmas for 2013.  Plus there will be a last chance to enter and nominate your teams for one of the other five Greatest Christmas Award categories just before The Greatest Awards Experts finalise their travel plans to come and meet the hundreds of teams already nominated.

If need a copy of the Christmas Special GTN Xtra to go direct to another memebr of your staff for The Greatest Christmas Awards, please send their e-mail details to trevor.pfeiffer@tgcmc.co.uk or use this subscribe link.

Good luck!

Our prediction, top right, assumes we don’t get any downpours of snow – the only thing we believe could stop continued year on year growth – and leaves room for further increases. In 2012 week 49 was actually the biggest of the year in sales volume terms.  Our prediuction has week 49 as the second highest week for 2013, behind the bumper week 22 at the Whitsun Bank Holiday.

Santa’s magnetic appeal shows no sign of slowing. As The Bearded One arrived at Ruxley manor last Saturday, only a handful of booking slots during November were still available out of a capacity of more than 30,000 this season. No wonder they’ve just opened a new food hall to maximise on every possible sales opportunity from all those families visiting during the next six weeks.

See GTN Xtra at the weekend for photos of the new Ruxley Manor GC Food Hall.

Check out the GTN Bestsellers Top 50 sales volumes compared to the same week last year...

l Garden Products – up 9%

l Christmas – down 6%

l Growing Media – down 1%

Free parking has always been acknowledged as one distinct advantage garden centres have over the High Street – so it will be interesting to see how a ‘Free Saturday Parking’ experiment next month in more than 25 local areas affects your centre’s trade.

More than 25 local councils have agreed to offer free parking on Small Business Saturday, 7 December, following lobbying from national small business group the Forum of Private Business.

Last month the Forum wrote to local authorities across the UK asking them to waive parking fees in support of the event.

The inaugural Small Business Saturday UK is the culmination of a campaign to encourage communities to shop local and support their small businesses.

FPB Chief Executive Phil Orford said parking charges discouraged many consumers from shopping on the high street, diminishing small businesses’ customer base. “The Forum believes removing these charges will help generate the conditions needed to make Small Business Saturday UK a great success,:” he said

“The response from many councils has been really encouraging. It’s great to see local authorities are prepared to take this step to support their local small business community. We may have just 27 so far but we hope many more will follow suit.”

The Forum is hoping more councils will join in as the date nears.

The campaign has ministerial support. Skills and Enterprise Minister Matthew Hancock said: ”I'm pleased to see local councils across the whole country, from Chesterfield to Cornwall and Selby to Stevenage, are showing real support for Small Business Saturday by waiving parking charges, and I hope many more councils will follow their example. Small businesses employ more than 11 million people across the UK and our new Business is GREAT campaign is celebrating the contribution they make."

Shadow Business Secretary Chuka Umunna MP said: ”This is a grass roots campaign and it is fantastic that support for the day has grown so significantly, with special events and campaigns being planned in local areas for the day across Britain. I hope the day will provide a real boost for small firms during the busiest shopping season of the year.”

If you’re near one of the participating areas listed below, you might want to monitor trade on 7 December to see how it affects your own footfall:

Arun District Council
Blaby District Council
Breckland Council
Camden Council
Castle Point Borough Council
Cheshire East Council
Cheshire West and Chester Council
Chesterfield Borough Council
Cornwall Council
Cumbria County Council
East Riding of Yorkshire Council
Eden District Council
Hart District Council
Hartlepool Borough Council
Hinckley & Bosworth Borough Council
Merton London Borough Council
Middlesbrough Council
Mole Valley District Council
North Tyneside Council
North Warwickshire Borough Council
Nuneaton & Bedworth Borough Council
Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council
Pendle Borough Council
Richmond upon Thames London Borough Council
Rossendale Borough Council
Selby District Council
Stevenage Borough Council

Outdoor living suppliers Alexander Rose are mounting a rescue package for workers from their Phillipines factory who were made homeless in the hurricane disaster. 

“It has been awful,” a spokesman told GTN Xtra. “Thankfully no one was killed at the Alexander Rose factory but many of the workers homes have been destroyed. People’s lives out there have been completely shattered.”

Donations from friends, staff and suppliers will be used to re-build some of the workers' homes and enable the company's local management to supply food and water to other nearby victims of the disaster.

The factory suffered only minor damage and will be back to full production next week, ensuring supplies to the UK are unaffected. 

Anyone who wishes to help should contact MD Borge Leth at the company’s Burgess Hill HQ.

Information 01444 258928

Westland’s Aftercut lawn care brand has won a top award for its new packaging.

The UK Packaging Awards voted the pack the Rigid Plastic Pack of the Year and also shortlisted it for the Best Re-Packaging of a Brand award.

Judges said the pack “made life just that little bit easier” for customers who like to look after their lawns and that it was a “great pack that delivers on its promise”.

The Even Flo container, which is manufactured by RPC Containers, was launched at the start of 2013 to solve the problem of uneven distribution of grass seed.

The solution was a dispersing ball device fitted within the nozzle, allowing the user to spread the granules evenly with ease. The ball device is incorporated into the handle, which can be reused with Aftercut refill packs.

Keith Nicholson, Marketing Director for Westland Horticulture said: “We worked closely with RPC Containers to create something that was lightweight and truly effective in spreading lawn seed evenly.”

The container won a Starpack Award of Excellence earlier this year.

 Westland and RPC receive their award (left to right): Josh Brooks (Packaging News), Mike Winston, Brian Lodge (RPC), Amy Lawrence (Westland), Stephen Bell (RPC), Adam Hills (awards host). [Picture: UK Packaging Awards]

With impeccable timing, the new Food Hall at Ruxley Manor Garden Centre opened the same week as Santa arrived to open their 30,000 capacity grotto and the winter ice rink opened.

Award winning butcher, Keith Mulford, was full of praise for the new Food Hall and told GTN Xtra that more quality butchers will be looking to open shops in garden centres. "Members of the Q Guild of Butchers see quality garden centres as the best opportunity to grow our businesses.  We could not put on a display like this on the high street and theres free parking for our customers too!" 

With thousands visiting the centre over the weekend it was hardly surprising that several of the lines on offer in the new Food Hall had completely sold out by the time GTN Xtra re-visited on Tuesday.

See our exclusive pictures below.  It's a shame we can't add the great smell of freshly baked bread that greets you upon entering the Food Hall. Now where have we heard of that tactic being used to woo customers into spending more?

Delegates to next week’s HTA Seasonal Plants Focus conference at Stratford Upon Avon will hear about lobbying work aimed at limiting the impact of proposed EU Legislation that could require all plants on sale to carry individual botanical descriptions.

Raoul Curtis-Machin (left), HTA Head of Horticulture, will ask ‘What’s in a name?’ at the conference, which takes place on Thursday 21 November at Young Plants Ltd.

The proposals could potentially cost the industry hundreds of millions of pounds. Curtis-Machin will give an insight into industry lobbying work on the subject and the HTA’s efforts to ensure a common sense approach.

Other conference speakers including Graham Dunn, MD of Cresco Horticulture; Nigel Judd, head of wholesale at Thompson & Morgan; Steve Jones, executive director at ReSharpen and Nicky Roeber, The Garden Centre Group’s plant buyer.

The conference theme is ‘Collaborate, innovate and succeed’. The event brings a wealth of industry experts together to discuss and debate the latest issues affecting seasonal and bedding plant growers and retailers.

Delegates can also take advantage of a networking dinner that will take place the night before (Wednesday 20 November) at the Alveston Manor Hotel in Stratford, and features an after-dinner talk on how the industry’s golden age is yet to come by Boyd Douglas-Davies, chief executive of the Hillview Group.

Further information: www.seasonalplantsfocus.co.uk

Elho has extended its Brussels herbs range with a herb station, a spacious pot in which to plant herbs of different shapes and sizes together. A pair of handy stainless steel herb scissors is supplied.

Elho have also designed a complementary table stand, ideal for cross selling with the herbs display.

The 30 x 15 cm unit comes in five colours: white, cherry, lime, olive and anthracite.

Information: www.elho.com. 

The Greenfingers charity is asking people in the horticultural industry to donate their last hour’s pay of 2013 to help fund new projects.

Greenfingers has already enabled 41 gardens to be built in UK children’s hospices and now has a as waiting list of projects.

The initiative is part of the charity’s ‘A garden is not just for summer’ campaign to raise awareness during the winter and festive season and boost funds in the Rosy Cheeks Appeal launched earlier this year. The appeal aims to raise £750,000 over the next two years to build at least ten new hospice gardens. Money raised from this winter’s campaign will go towards creating ‘whatever the weather’ spaces for year-round use.

Matthew Wilson, chairman of Greenfingers, said: “At Christmas our thoughts are often with our families and giving gifts – at Greenfingers we are asking people to think of families who will be relying on the hospices around the country to provide respite, support and help to children over the festive season.”

Honda UK has confirmed it will be supporting the initiative. Honda spokesman Paul Ormond said: “The gardens created by Greenfingers become something very special to the children, carers and parents who use them which is why supporting the work they do is close to our heart.’”

You can donate at www.Justgiving.com/Greenfingers-Christmas or by texting GRNF50 and the amount you wish to donate to 70070.

Information: www.greenfingerscharity.org.uk

The psychiatrist behind the GB Olympic cycling team will be sharing his secrets of how to perform at the optimum level at the Garden Centre Association’s annual conference in January.

Dr Steve Peters, who is a consultant psychiatrist, bestselling author and head of sports psychology for UK Athletics, will be speaking at the conference on Monday 27 January.

Dr Peters has worked with some of our best-known and most admired athletes, including Chris Hoy, Bradley Wiggins and Victoria Pendleton.

In his bestselling book, ‘The Chimp Paradox’, Dr Peters explains his method to help us understand and control our ‘inner chimp’ – the irrational, impulsive, seemingly impossible part of our mind that often holds us back.

“By examining motivation, confidence and communication, he will show that competition is as much in the mind as it is in the field or on the  track – or in the garden centre. We can’t wait to hear what he has to say,” said the GCA’s interim chief executive Iain Wylie.

In addition to his extraordinary success with British cycling, Dr Peters has worked on 12 other Olympic disciplines, as well as Premier League  football and English rugby.

He began his career as a maths teacher, before switching to medicine and specialising in patients with severe and dangerous personality disorders.

His focus is now on how the mind can enable people to reach optimum performance in all walks of life. Working with sportspeople at the top  of their game, he gives them the confidence to come back from defeat and out-perform the opposition.

He has been described as a ‘genius’ by Team GB cycling coach Dave Brailsford. Meanwhile, Chris Hoy, Victoria Pendleton and Bradley Wiggins have all attributed their success to him.

The GCA conference, which is sponsored by Davidson Richards and Westland Horticulture, takes place at the Hilton Blackpool Hotel in Blackpool from January 26 until 29.  More than 300 delegates are expected to attend. 

When David Wilson, the owner of Hetland Garden Centre, near Dumfries, told his wife Karen, that he had decided to convert their Orchard Planteria into a Dino Park she thought he was barking mad.

Now after a first season with over 35,000 paying visitors, Karen along with all of the team at Hetland Garden Centre, understand that Davids’ love for creating memorable experiences for children is something they can all be rightly proud of.

Operating a garden centre is more and more about creating a destination type experience.  The Dino park at Hetland Garden Centre is now well and truly on the destination experience map in the borders of Scotland.

When GTN visited recently we were blown away by the attention to detail, the care and enterprise that has been invested.  From the Disney like sound system, the sensor triggered smoke machines, the Jurassic Park electric fencing and the Dino beaten up Landover, everything has been fine tuned to turn a small orchard planteria into a Dino theme park.

Oh, yes of course there are Dinosaurs too.  Just like a good garden design, every turn of a path brings a new point of interest and there’s a Dino play area and a Dino Cafe too.

Not unsurprisingly David is already planning an extension for next season. “I’d like to add more things to appeal to older children.  Perhaps an animated Dinosaur and a Dino Adventure playground.”

If any garden centre is looking to add tourist destination type features GTN would encourage you to go and visit the Hetland Dino Park.  You’ll be impressed with what can be achieved by a relatively small garden centre – if the vision, passion and attention to detail are top of the agenda.

David Wilson (top right) with his team of Dino Rangers.  Having closed for the winter after half term the team are now busy getting ready for their Christmas roles as part of the park is converted into a winter grotto including an ice cave (instead of the mine) where children will meet Santa.  Even the dinosaurs are being "put to bed" under cover of snow camouflage netting so that children visiting will have a completely different experience that they had during the summer.

Stax Trade Centres

Garden Sales Representative - North East

THE PACKAGE

• Competitive salary
• Bonus
• Generous holiday entitlement
• Fully expensed company car
• Contributory pension scheme
• Staff discount

Leading DIY and Gardening wholesaler Stax Trade Centres are continuing to expand their delivered service to garden centres across the UK.

An opportunity now exists for an experienced Sales Representative to cover the North East region.

You will have proven sales experience and a comprehensive knowledge of the gardening sector and garden products, ideally through dealing with garden centres. You will be self-motivated, able to demonstrate commercial acumen, well organised with good interpersonal skills and live ideally within the North East region.

Please write or email with full details to:

Steve Holmes
Stax Trade Centres
Howley Park Road East
Morley
Leeds
LS27 0SW

Or email steve.holmes@staxplc.co.uk

www.staxtradecentres.co.uk

The charity warm-up event on the eve of the GCA annual conference in Blackpool in January will be a day of ‘Beach, Bingo and Boogie’.

Jont organiser Danny Adamson of William Sinclair Horticulture says the event will make for “a good day out at the seaside, whilst also raising lots of money for Greenfingers”.

There will be Retailers v's Suppliers Beach Games in the afternoon, followed by fish and chips, bingo and, in the evening, a ‘boogie’ session.

Sponsors, at £500 a time, are being sought for each game, each round of bingo, the team T-shirts, the fish and chips and the first drink of the evening. Barton Grange GC and William Sinclair have already committed £500 apiece.

Contact: Danny.Adamson@william-sinclair.co.uk

Overall volumes were up by a modest 3.4% over last week, with year to date sales up 2% compared to 2012 - but volumes trailed by a disappointing 14.5% compared to our 2011 figures.

However, it is early days. The last fortnight of November should produce a surge of consumer interest as the fresh Christmas trees arrive. We notice a number of on-the-ball centres are advising customers of delivery-in dates to whet the appetite of families who like to get their Christmases up and running early.

There is evidence in this week’s chart that consumer attention is already turning to tree decor. The highest climber is Kaemingk’s plain shatterproof silver baubles – a perennial favourite that reminds us that traditional colours and styles still hold sway.

Highest new entry is ‘Baker & Taylor’s ‘Santa Comes To...’ Christmas Book, which has been selling strongly everywhere.

Perennial, the UK’s only charity dedicated to helping horticulturists, is launching a year-long awareness and fundraising campaign to mark its 175^th anniversary in 2014.

It will kick off with at a party at The Roof Gardens, Kensington on 17 January. Perennial is looking for support from all corners of the industry as well as from the garden-loving public, to safeguard its services for those struggling with disability, debt or illness.

Established in 1839 by a group of wealthy landowners who wished to provide for their long-serving head gardeners in retirement, The Gardeners’ Benevolent Institution began life as a pension fund. It soon attracted the attention of Victorian high society, who willingly supported the fund with annual donations and appearances at its annual fundraising dinner. Charles Dickens famously said at the 9th annual event: “I hope the day will come when every gardener in England will be a member of the charity.”

Perennial, as the same Institution is now known, still helps gardeners across the UK in retirement and has extended its reach to all professionals working in and retired from horticulture and their families. But Dickens’ dream is yet to be a reality – there are an estimated 500,000 people working in horticulture in the UK but only a fraction of those are actively involved with the charity.

Richard Capewell, Chief Executive of Perennial, said: “The work of Perennial – which is often described by those we help simply as a ‘lifeline’ – is needed now more than it ever was. The economic pressures on low-paid horticulturists too often result in debilitating stress. A high rate of injury, and subsequent long-term leave of absences, means that many workers in our industry struggle to make ends meet. We’d like to be able to help even more people this year and are looking for industry support to make our 175th birthday a really special one.”

The charity no longer provides regular pensions, but does still provide a range of financial services to people experiencing hardship, and in the current economic climate is needed more than it ever was. In 2012 Perennial helped over 1,000 people, over 85% of whom were still of working age and a quarter of people needed help with debt. Perennial helps with debt advice, financial and general support, and often simply as a listening friend who can help make sense of a situation.

With many parts of the country experiencing their first frosts, it’s no surprise to see Gardman Frostgard nip into the top spot ahead of Fito orchid drip feeders - but otherwise, the focus is on indoor plants. Sales of cyclamen and the first poinsettias of the season are clearly stimulating the take-up of pot covers, with Scheurich’s dark red pot climbing seven places to snatch the No.3 slot. Another clear indicator of the interest in houseplants is Baby Bio Original’s progress by 14 chart places to No.12.

However, the week’s highest climber is Gardman’s Ice Orb solar lights - a sign, perhaps, that stockists are picking up on our recommendation to display this product in the Christmas department, where store traffic is currently at its highest, to capitalise on its seasonal potential.

Elswhere, donkey ornaments are making their presence felt, thanks to Vivid Arts.

The 2014 RHS Chelsea Flower Show will give a number of young people the prospect of a big break in their horticultural careers.

Many gardens at the show (ponsored by M&G Investments) are being designed by new, up-and-coming talent, and many other exhibitors will be giving young people the opportunity to learn from and be a part of the world-class event.

Hugo Bugg (26), will be designing a Chelsea show garden for the first time, for Royal Bank of Canada. The RBC’s ‘Waterscape Garden - Embrace the Rain’ has been designed to illustrate global water issues, whilst demonstrating practical water management solutions for the home gardener. Hugo was named RHS Young Designer of the Year in 2010, when he designed a gold medal-winning garden at RHS Flower Show Tatton Park.

Brothers Harry and David Rich, (26 and 23), are designing a garden for Bord Na Mona. It’s their first show garden, although they did design an artisan garden at the 2013 show. Designed for Beechwood College in Cardiff, the garden takes its inspiration from the constellations and will be a naturalistic, calm environment where the children can learn about both land and space.

Inspired by the personal experience of his brother's tours to Afghanistan with the armed forces, Matt Keightley (29) will also be designing his first show garden. ‘Hope on the Horizon’, for servicemen's charity Help for Heroes, represents the complex and progressive path towards recovery experienced by wounded, injured and sick personnel.

Apprentices will be helping to build a number of show gardens, including The Homebase Garden - Time to Reflect, designed by Adam Frost. Part of Homebase's Garden Academy Scheme, the apprentices will have completed 10 month's of training, including days with experts at RHS Garden Wisley, Surrey, before coming on site to assist Adam in creating the garden. Apprentices enrolled on the RHS apprenticeship scheme at RHS Garden Wisley will also be on site to help build spectacular gardens. Nick Drury and Daniel Vaughan, who started their apprenticeships at RHS Garden Wisley in July 2013, will be supporting the team from Crocus to build Show Gardens for The Telegraph and Laurent-Perrier.

Elsewhere in the showground, students and young people are being given the opportunity to develop practical skills and learn about the diversity of career opportunities within horticulture. In the Great Pavilion, students from schools and horticultural colleges will be helping to create some of the spectacular floral displays, including those for Hillier Nurseries, Birmingham City Council, UK Horticulture and Scotts Miracle-Gro.

Notcutts has opened two temporary Christmas stores in Kingston and Cambridge in a bid to drive further sales for the business over the winter period.

The temporary stores – branded 'Deck the Halls' – will take Notcutts’ Christmas offer into high quality shopping centres to deliver a family experience for seasonal gifting and decoration.

Offering the best of Notcutts’ Christmas range, 'Deck the Halls' is a one stop shop for all the family, offering products to fulfil all festive needs from pocket money gifts, games and toys to stylish decorations for the home.

Andrew Staff, Interim CEO, commented: “Our objective for our 'Deck the Halls' temporary stores was to find well positioned retails units within covered shopping centres in locations that were within reasonable reach of our existing garden centres in order to introduce our product to a wider audience and add useful additional bottom line profit capitalising on one of our real strengths – Christmas.”

Both stores – in Cambridge's Grafton Centre and the Bentall Centre, Kingston-upon-Thames – will trade right through to Christmas Eve this year.  

Every week GTN receives and analyses epos data from a number of UK garden centres to produce the GTN Bestsellers charts and weekly bestsellers sales tips.

The full charts which provide useful insight into product sales peaks, new trends and new link sales opportunities are published in the weekly GTN Xtra printed newsletter and on the GTN website www.gardentradenews.co.uk.

Every week we give sales volume comparisons with 2011 as well as 2012 to allow your teams to see variations over a three year period.

Access is by subscription only.  For £145.00 per year you and your team can have access to the most upto date gardening sales analysis that has already helped many UK garden centres increase their sales.  To subscribe call 01733 775700, or subscribe on-line here

or e-mail karen.pfeiffer@tgcmc.co.uk

Highlights of the GTN Garden Products Bestsellers chart for this week are here

Highlights of the GTN Christmas Products Bestsellers chart for this week are here

Highlights of the GTN Growing Media Bestsellers chart for this week are here

WARNING the GTN Bestsellers Charts seriously improve the business of our subscribers.  Invest 15 minutes each week in improving your sales using the GTN Bestsellers charts and your turnover and customer satisfaction will improve too.