As the first part of the late May Bank holiday held its own on last year in sales volume terms, the weather turned and garden centre thoughts were once again along the lines of: “Will we get a summer – or will the coldest spring for 30 years be followed by months of grey skies and drizzle?”

Overall sales volumes in the GTN Bestsellers charts may be up on last year now, but with sales still over 10% below 2011 levels we've still got a long way before we can cite 2013 as being a good year.

The omens are good – the Aussies will soon be here for an Ashes cricket campaign and the summers of 2005 and 2009 were both good weather wise. Keep your fingers crossed that the four year cycle repeats itself…

The sounds of summer have already started to play in some centres. Garden Radio has just added a playlist of summer songs to its in-store music and messaging service.  “After running a Christmas library every year to help the retail ambience during the autumn we decided we should use our music to add to the summer feel-good factor too," said Garden Radio founder Trevor Pfeiffer.

What other ideas have you developed to give customers that summer feel-good factor when they visit your centre?

GTN Bestsellers Top 50 sales volumes compared to the same week last year:

Garden Products – down 18%

Veg-2-Gro – up 33%

Growing Media – down 21%

All items index – up 3%

WARNING the GTN Bestsellers Charts can seriously improve your business. Only subscribe if you want to invest 15 minutes each week in improving your turnover and customer satisfaction.

Despite everything the weather and the economy can throw at it, garden retailing is proving amazingly resilient, as new analysis by GTN Bestsellers demonstrates.

Because the industry is so dependent on the weather, we tend to focus on the problems we face when the weather is bad rather than the bonus we get when the sun shines.

The graph pictured here is an attempt to ‘normalise’ the weather, just as Dobbies CEO James Barnes tried to do in a presentation at last year’s HTA conference. Take the periods of bad weather out of the equation and we can see the industry has been doing rather better that we might imagine.

The graph takes the start of the 2012 sales season, when the weather was good, and adds on recent 2013 sales volumes. The result is minus 0.5% on 2011 sales volumes and plus 5.8% on 2010 sales volumes. Despite what the Met Office described last week as the coldest March to May period since 1979. Not all bad, then.

“This kind of proves that while growth may have been stunted by the economic situation, if the weather had been at least ‘normal’ or average, gardening retail sales will at least be holding their own,” says GTN Bestsellers analyst Trevor Pfeiffer.  “We’d better get praying now for a ‘normal’ spring in 2014....”

While weather forecasting is still a notably inexact science, take heart from the MetCheck website, which suggests that the weather at Nottingham for the the first Ashes Test next month (11-15 July) is, well, not perfect but OK by average English summer standards – temperatures in the range 18-23C, light winds, minimal rain showers – and a bit of cloud cover to help our bowlers (but not the Aussies).

And, of course, if England do well, the national feel-good factor will put consumers in the mood for a few barbecues and summer parties. And in our book, barbies and parties mean prizes…

Scotts Levington Tomorite has jumped to No 1 spot in the GTN Bestsellers Garden Products chart as plant food together with weed and pest products dominate the Top 10.

Scotts Miracle-Gro All Purpose Soluble Plant Food has risen five places to No 6 while Westland Gro-Sure Super Enriched Tomato Food is a place behind.

Scotts Roundup Weedkiller Gel loses its top spot and is now at No 3 while the same company’s Weedol Rootkill Plus Gun is at No 8. Bayer Bio Slug & Snail Killer (pictured) has increased its sales to climb the chart to No 5.

The highest climber in the Top 50 is Gardman Marker Light Single, rising 29 places to No 12.

Gardman also claim the accolade for the highest new entry and re-entry products with its Herb Planter (No 41) and Hanging Basket Easy Liner 40 cm (No 37) respectively.

The only other new entry this week is the Smart Solar Flutterby Butterfly at No 49.

Other re-entries include:

• 4Creative Products 2 in 1 Paving Brush has seen a 50% increase in sales (No 38).
• Scotts Miracle-Gro Flower Magic Mixed Colours 1 kg (No 44).
• Scotts Miracle-Gro Pour & Feed 1-litre (No 46).
• Bayer Toprose  1kg (No 48).
• Gardman Easy Liner 35cm Green (No 50).

See the full GTN Garden Products Bestsellers Chart here.  Subscribers Only

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Fermoy’s organise a popular competition at the regional County Show each year, encouraging schools to grow and design their own allotments.

More than 30 schools rose to the challenge of this year’s theme, ‘A Vegetable Garden in a Recycled Container’, and grew gardens in all sorts of recycled objects, from a supermarket trolley and old tyres to wash stands and even a cardboard box.

Over 5,000 show visitors voted for their favourite garden and the eventual winners were Landscove Primary School in Ashburton, Devon with their Shoe Plant Tree, which captured more than 600 votes. Pupils grew veg in an old shoe or boot to create the winning sculpture.

Sarah Dumont from Fermoys was delighted with the imagination of the entries. “With the poor growing conditions we knew that some schools were finding it hard to get plants ready so early on in the season, but what they lacked in quality of planting they made up for in the quality of their designs and had lots of fun,” she said.

The Devon based Garden Centre have developed strong links with lots of local schools over the past few years and are always keen to work with schools to encourage  gardeners of the future.

Below: The New Shoe Tree Plant

The Bank Holiday weekend helped growing media sales to grow week-on-week but volumes are still lagging behind 2011 and 2012 figures.

Two noticeable movers in the GTN Bestsellers Growing Media chart were John Innes-related products. The highest climber was Westland Multipurpose John Innes 20-litres with 33% extra free at No 33, and the highest re-entry belonged to Arthur Bowers Multipurpose + John Innes 50 litres at No 37.

The GTN Bestellers chart again indicates that growbags and container and basket composts, along with Multipurpose, look the best bets for decent sales at the moment.

The only new entry is Scotts Levington Container & Hanging Basket Compost 50 litres, which has just made it into the chart at No 50.

See the full GTN Growing Media Bestsellers Chart here.  Subscribers Only

To Subscribe to the full GTN Bestsellers Weekly Charts for only £120.00 per year click here

Worcester’s David’s Nurseries, voted Britain’s best garden centre last year by The Sun, and winners of GTN’s Greatest Small Garden Centre Team for the past four years, is to be sold.

The owners, David & Sarah Beauchamp, are to retire 32 years after setting up the business as a small nursery.

“We’ve worked very hard at building the garden centre business and have been very lucky to have such local and experienced staff alongside us for the journey” said David Beauchamp, “but Sarah and I feel now is the time to retire and hand over the reins to somebody else who can take the business to the next stage. We have helped our customers create their own gardens and now it is time to use our expertise to build our own garden from scratch.”

David’s Nurseries has a strong following within Worcester and the surrounding area. The 4-acre site garden centre has full planning consent covering its 23,000 sq. ft. of retail buildings. It employs six full-time staff and has a turnover of £1.2 million.

Mike Gilbert of Gilbert Evans, who are advising the Beauchamps on the disposal, said the business would suit somebody who want to invest in a business with a good core client base. “We will consider either a sale or a lease,” he said.

Sarah Beauchamp said “We are passionate about plants and their care. I am sure we have been voted GTN’s team of the year for the last four years because we strive to provide excellent quality plants, value for money and the best customer service in the area. Having knowledgeable staff in place who can give accurate advice is hard to find at many centres as less people are coming into the industry.

“Although the trading conditions have been difficult over the last 12 months we are constantly looking for ways to drive footfall. Extending our café in January of this year and offering talks and classes in our purpose built class room have certainly helped. We have a very strong following with our garden club and our coach trips are always a sell out.”

Until a buyer is found, it’s business as usual, the couple said.

This week’s GTN Bestsellers Veg-2-Gro  chart is again dominated by two growers... Gardeners Kitchen and Quantil.

Gardeners Kitchen continue to occupy the top of the chart with nine of their 16 products filling the Top 10 positions. Patio Tomato ‘Totem’ takes over No 1 position from Tomato ‘Moneymaker’, which slips to third place.

Quantil veg plants, however, dominate the chart in total volume, with 21 of the Top 50 Bestsellers. Their Runner Bean challenges Gardeners Kitchen’s total dominance of the top of the chart by sneaking in at No 10.

The highest new entry of the week is, you’ve guessed it, from Quantil – its 8cm Cucumber Ridge is at No 22, one of 6 cucumber plant lines in the Top 50.

Quantil also have the highest climber in Lettuce ‘Winter Cos’, moving up 20 places to No 29.

See the full GTN Veg 2 Gro Bestsellers Chart here to see where late clearance sales of seed potatoes have reached in the Top 50.  Subscribers Only

To Subscribe to the full GTN Bestsellers Weekly Charts for only £120.00 per year click here

With an eye catching display that immediately drew the attention of consumers, Bellis Brothers Farm Shop and Garden Centre in Wrexham has been named the winner of the Baby Bio/EPIC merchandising competition. 

Planters Garden Centre came second and Langlands Garden Centre at Shiptonthorpe third with Garden Wise, Secretts Garden Centre and Sunshine Garden centre all being commended.  All have been rewarded with Family Preview Screening Tickets, which include ‘fun in the foyer’ and the chance to be the first to watch the movie EPIC.

Baby Bio has teamed up with what’s expected to be the hit movie of 2013, EPIC, in a high profile brand partnership.  From 20th Century Fox and the creators of Ice Age and Rio, EPIC, which opened nationwide earlier this week, is a 3D CG action-adventure comedy that reveals a hidden world unlike any other.  To celebrate, Baby Bio is giving gardeners the chance to win their very own EPIC Adventure and the merchandising competition was designed to encourage retailers to make the most of this potential to increase footfall and boost sales. 

The judges – Pat Flynn of Garden Trade News, Baby Bio Product Manager Alison Mulvaney and Bayer Garden Sales Manager Scott Williams – assessed the entries on creativity and the imaginative use of the point of sale materials combined with the likelihood of the display to drive sales. 

 “All the entries were good but these three stood out,” explained Alison Mulvaney.  “Their use of the point of sale material was impressive as was the way they displayed the product.  They also wove in the story of the film and the EPIC Adventure ahead of the lucky winner of the consumer competition.”

EPIC tells the story of an on-going battle deep in the forest between the forces of good and evil.  When a teenage girl finds herself magically transported into this secret universe, she must band together with a rag-tag team of fun and whimsical characters in order to save their world … and ours.  The film’s trailer is in cinemas now.

The prize for the consumer who wins the EPIC Adventure is an incredible family holiday for four to Thailand.  The trip will start with five nights at the beautiful resort of Phuket before being swept away by a private driver into the jungle for a further two nights.  While staying in a treehouse in the Khao Sok National Park, the winner and their family will go on an elephant ride and take a guided jungle trek where they may encounter local monkeys and tropical birds.

Cultivation Street launched last weekend in The Sunday People to find Britain’s best turned out street.  Whether your customers live on a terrace in Todmorden, or avenue in Abergavenny – TV gardener David Domoney wants to see their street and judge who has the best gardens, plants and green spaces in the whole of the UK.

The competition started on Sunday May 26 and there is prize money of £10,000 National Garden Gift Vouchers to the winning street.

Applications for the prize should be in by Monday August 26, and the final prize will be announced on the Monday September 8. There are major media outlets already confirmed – Sunday People are giving extensive coverage as are many regional newspapers.

David Domoney, the organiser of the campaign, says: “This is the Chelsea Flower Show of the UK’s streets, communities of next door neigbours all working together to share the passion of gardening and create a sense of pride to where they live. It’s the ideal place to share experience, plants and the enjoyment of gardening. 

"We have achieved such widespread support for this competition. I am also delighted that the Prince of Wales, Princes Foundation for Building Community is awarding the Sustainability and Community Street category."

The sponsor is the Horticultural Trades Association with their brand ‘National Garden Gift Vouchers’. The prize money for the winners is not to be sniffed at with a standing total of £16,000 pounds worth of National Garden Gift vouchers up for grabs.

Carol Paris Director General of the Horticultural Trades Association says “Having a great line of street gardens does not only benefit the home owners, it could inspire hundreds of people who pass that street in their daily lives, equaling in a push to encourage new gardeners by good example”.

Prince's Foundation competition judge says:  "We believe that green spaces form an integral part of any healthy, sustainable community and this competition will help put the spotlight on that. Making the most of your front garden can help transform a good street into a great community that everyone can enjoy. Competitions like this show us that you can make the most of any urban garden, no matter how small, as long as you're creative and committed."

The Horticultural Trades Association is supplying all Garden Centres nationwide with free POS kits ready for the launch to help to entice as many entries for Cultivation Street as possible. If each house that enters spends on average £150 on garden improvements, then one street's houses is worth a minimum of £600 to a retailer, with five streets' worth a minimum of £3,000 (based upon 4 houses in a street).

The Sunday People newspaper is behind the campaign with coverage of the competition, with the Editor James Scott saying “Encouraging gardeners young and old is a big belief to our paper, I dedicate a whole page every week for David Domoney to give great hints and tips on how to make the most of our readers outside space”. The People will be printing features on the competition throughout the summer.

As well as the HTA and Trinity Mirror, the campaign has gained some other heavy weights supporting the campaign including the Institute of Horticulture, The Garden Centre Association, and the Gardening Industry Manufactures Association.

Neil Gow, Director of GIMA said: “With the season late to kick off, this competition is perfectly timed to inspire the public to venture outside and garden, alongside manufacturers and retailers working together to encourage sales”.

Participating streets include families from across the age spectrum, involving children right through to the elderly.  It’s all about creating beautiful garden spaces, making new friends, attracting more wildlife and, having fun. 

With regional heats and categories of awards, we are looking for true community spirit and pride, by making aesthetic and environmental improvements to street gardens culminating in ‘Britain’s Best Street Award’. 

In addition to eight regional awards there are other special award categories which include:-  

Generation Street – Awarded to the street from across the whole of Britain that has encouraged the youngest people to get involved in the project.

Inspiration Street – Awarded to the street that has come together to look spectacular against the odds. It might be that the gardeners are recovering from illness, accident or addiction, but the community has still pulled together to create something very special. Judges will be looking for an inspirational story.

Multiplication Street – This award will go to the street with the most consecutive front gardens involved in the competition, so start encouraging your neighbours to take part today. The more the merrier!

Transformation Street – This award will go to the street that has enjoyed the most impressive transformation across the whole of the UK. Whether its seen driveways returned to gardens, dramatic new planting, and the greatest improvement in front gardens or all of the above.

Sustainability & Community Street – This award will be judged and awarded by the Princes Foundation for Building Community for the  street that has demonstrated an understanding of harmony and sustainability.  Use of sustainable planting, re use or second life of discarded products/waste, timeless land based skills, willow hurdles, eco growing, dry stone walling, building your own bug hotels whilst involving community groups.

Cultivation School – This award will go to the school that has involved children or families from the school to create an impressive garden within the grounds of the school.  Whether it is with bountiful edible plants that help transform attitudes towards cabbage, soil, worms and ladybirds or beautiful flowers for decoration and harmony.

To enter and for more details, visit www.cultivationstreet.co.uk

There is a full range of Cultivation Street POS available for HTA members. Please email nggv@the-hta.org.uk for more details.

Town & Country are continuing their support for Greenfingers by sponsoring the production of a video released as part of the charity’s new fundraising initiative - the Rosy Cheeks Appeal.

Greenfingers is dedicated to creating magical gardens for children’s hospices and through the Rosy Cheeks Appeal aims to raise £750,000 to build 10 new children’s hospice gardens around the UK over the next 10 years.

The new film highlights the work of Greenfingers, with real life stories on the differences the gardens can make to families and staff at hospices throughout the country.

Chairman of Greenfingers Matthew Wilson said: “Town & Country has long been a supporter of Greenfingers and we are particularly grateful to them for providing the funding that has enabled us to produce this video, which we will be using to raise awareness of the work we do and help meet the targets we have set out for the next couple of years.” 

www.townandco.com

Roundwood Garden Centre at Bocking near Braintree hosted a vintage car rally over the Bank Holiday weekend.

Hundreds of visitors turned out at at the annual event, where dozens of classic cars and motorbikes, including Jaguars, Rolls Royces and Mustangs, were on show.

There was live music, craft stalls, a beer tent and a vintage afternoon tea tent.

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.

New for this year, every week we'll 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 £120.00 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 Veg-2-Gro 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.

Coolings Nurseries share their 100th birthday with the Chelsea Flower Show last week.

The centre created a 6ft (2m) high floral birthday cake to celebrate the double centenary.

Knockholt-based Coolings teamed up with the British Plant Nursery Guide (promoters of independent British Nurseries) on their Pavilion Way stand. The bespoke planter contained Coolings home grown favourites including white bacopa, lavandula ‘Regal Splendour’ and picea ‘J.W. Daisy’s White’. Paul Cooling and a team of experts offered expertise and advice to show visitors throughout the week. 

Coolings were also involved with other displays at the annual show, working with Marshall Murray, a Kentish supplier of sculpture and furniture from some of Britain’s finest artists, and the Sevenoaks Flower Club, who themselves are celebrating their Diamond Anniversary.

The centenary ‘cake’ will go on show at Cooloings Summer Showcase, which opens on Saturday 29 June. Locals know it as Knockholt’s ‘Chelsea’, where the centre displays many of the several hundred varieties of bedding plants grown on their 4.5 acre production nursery. Coolings still grow the majority of the plants they sell.

It is often said that it is better to have a star team than a team of stars. How do we build a star team and recruit the best players to join?

Teamwork is all about getting along with everyone isn’t it? We wish! How often do we hear business owners say: “Staff eh? Who would employ them!”

First up,  have a clear vision and purpose. Your team needs to know exactly why they exist. What is their goal?  As leader of the team you must communicate the answers to these questions persuasively.

Create the best environment you can. Build a culture of trust and respect. ‘Say what you mean and mean what you say’. If trust is breached, we all know it becomes more difficult to re-build next time

Find your team's ‘star power.’ When you hire to add to your team, find the best players you can. You need some great individual performers and you need some great team players. If you don’t have a balanced team, you will end up with either a team of stars who are self-serving and continually demand attention; or a team of average performers without drive, energy or initiative.

Stars usually have a natural affinity with certain aspects of the business. Whether it’s their merchandising skills that simply takes your breath away or whether it’s their skill with a spreadsheet. During the recruiting process find out what they love best about their lives, what are their passions, why do they like working in garden centres, what are their personal goals for the next five years.

Let people play to their strengths. Applaud them when they do well but always encourage those strengths to be used appropriately and regularly. Knowing their strengths isn’t enough – they must be used to the mutual benefit of the team

Let every team member be a star to the level of their ability. You only need one leader of a star team but every other star in the galaxy has a role to play. 

Communicate clear expectations of behaviour and performance. Ineffective communication in a team can result in disaster. The first sign of an internal break-down is often me-centred language or lack of mutual accountability and commitment. Nobody should be saying “It’s not my job”

Maintain teamwork, even when things go wrong and resist any development of unfriendly behaviour. In a team environment it’s not what went right or wrong, not who succeeded or who caused mishap. It’s cooperation, focus and productivity that has the greatest impact. Some of the best teams are those whose leaders are only a resource in the event of a problem.

With commitment and appreciation of value you can build a star team.

©Garden Retail Success 2013

Enter your team in The Greatest Awards 2013, see next story

Tim Yeo, the only MP with a single figure golf handicap, will be joining the GIMA team and be the after dinner speaker at next week’s GIMA Charity Golf Day and Evening event (Thursday 6 June, Staverton Park, near Daventry).

Tim Yeo was shadow Minister for Agriculture during the foot and mouth crisis and has worked in the Trade and Industry, Environment and Education ministries. While Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister he was PPS to Douglas Hurd both in the Home and Foreign Office. Renowned for his sparkling wit, his audience can expect some real ‘Yes Minister’ anecdotes and recollections from the era of the late Margaret Thatcher as well as some stories from his world as a writer and book reviewer.

There are still some places to play golf, join the evening event or simply to be a sponsor and help raise money for the two charities the event is supporting this year – Garden Leave which works with war veterans with invisible injuries, and Greenfingers.

For details, call GIMA on 01959 564 947

GTN and sponsors Bord na Mona are now inviting garden centres to take part in The Greatest Planterias Award 2013, a nationwide competition to encourage the creation of exciting and innovative plant displays that will stimulate footfall and boost customer spend.

The competition is in two parts:

1.  The Greatest Planteria Displays celebrating 100 years of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show – using all your skills and ingenuity to produce beautiful, fun-filled planteria theatre - with sales appeal. As last year’s Greatest Jubilee Doorstep promotions proved, displays of this kind guarantee an immediate increase in plant sales.

Garden centres should send photos of their displays to us by Wednesday 15 July 2013. The winners will be selected by an expert Greatest Awards judging panel and notified of their success later in July, giving them ample opportunity for marketing and PR activity during the summer and through the autumn sales period.

2.  The Greatest Planteria Sales Teams - as voted by the public.  GTN will provide, on application, PDFs of posters, voting forms and other POS you can use to get your customers involved in voting your Planteria team as The Greatest.  Part of the voting process involves your customers giving feedback as to why your team is The Greatest, which always proves a great motivator to planteria staff.

The public vote for The Greatest Planteria Sales Team will also close on 15 July and the winners notified later in the month. 

For both of these Greatest Awards categories there will be awards for different sizes of garden centre, so every Planteria Sales team has a chance of winning, they just have to be Great at what they do.  To register your Planteria Team for The Greatest Planetria Awards follow this link: Register here

Garden centres who took part in The Greatest Jubilee Doorstep Challenge know just how much their special displays helped to increase plant sales in the challenging trading conditions of summer 2012.

At our Gold Award centre, Van Hage at Great Amwell, their excellent Jubilee dressing was evident from the car park through to the spa baths display and resulted in sales of Jubilee items that far exceeded expectations.

Centres can use their participation to develop useful community networking and even create their own customer competition, like finalists Barton Grange at Brock, who got 42 local schools involved last year.

A proposal to build a Sainsbury’s store at Malmesbury Garden Centre was turned down this week by Chippenham town council. The council opted instead to allow a Waitrose store on land nearer the town centre.

Cllr Tony Trotman, who chaired the meeting, said many Malmesbury residents were involved in creating the neighbourhood plan which was in favour of a supermarket in the town.

He said the Sainsbury’s plan was rejected because of the affect its ‘”tremendous amount of non-food square metreage” would have on Malmesbury’s retail scene.

“The Waitrose proposal was half the size and will be situated a four-and-a-half minute walk from the town centre, and a percentage of its car park will be allowed for those shopping in the town,” he said, adding that 300 employers on the High Street supported the plan because it would add ambience and keep shoppers in the town.

The Waitrose application received 189 letters of objection and 505 in support, plus a 41-signature petition of support and a petition with 66 signatures objecting. Sainsbury’s plans had 305 letters of objection and 165 in support.

The HTA National Plant Show, sponsored by Hortipak and Garden Trade News, at Stoneleigh Park on 25 and 26 June will host more than 100 of the UK’s best plant suppliers under one roof. More than 1,000 plant varieties will be on view.

Ball Colegrave are presenting their recently introduced programme of high performing zonal and ivy leaf geraniums. The refreshed range incorporates existing top performing varieties with great new genetics from leading geranium breeders. It includes the ivy leaf geranium ‘Supreme’ a superior series of free-branching, cascading plants with large, crisp and bold single flowers.

Seiont Nurseries are showcasing three introductions yet to be launched to the trade – escallonia ‘Golden Carpet’, a sambucus (yet to be named), and agapanthus ‘Golden Drop’.

Fairweather’s Nursery’s introductions include agapanthus ‘Brilliant Blue’ which is hardy and very free flowering, and lychnis ‘Scarlet O’Hara’. Also on display will be Leucanthemum ‘Freak’, winner of the Best in Category for Herbaceous Perennial at last year’s show.

John Woods Nurseries are showing additions to their range for autumn 2013 and spring 2014 seasons as well as proven promotional plants. Plants on show will include a new Mattocks rose, new promotional shrubs and a special promotion of the striking Hachmann rhododendrons in the Waterers ericaceous collection.

Gardeners Kitchen are set to revolutionise the shelf life of young plants for retailers and have developed a cultural technique that can add as much as two weeks to the shelf life of most of the 140 vegetable varieties they produce.

Kernock Park Plants launch their impressive Proven Winners POS materials.  You can register the stand as a stockist of Proven Winners plants and browse the new season’s catalogue.

Other must see exhibitors include Wyevale Nurseries, Hillier Nurseries, Bransford Webbs Plant Company and Lowaters.

To find out more about who’s exhibiting and all news visit http://www.nationalplantshow.co.uk/index.php/visitors/show-preview