GTN Xtra - GTN Xtra Issue 35 2018

July 2018 was a sparkling month for garden centre group Blue Diamond. Silver-Gilt Medals at RHS Flower Shows, eight garden centres acquired from Wyevale Garden Centres and seven awards in the GCA Midlands Region including Midlands Garden Centre of the Year for East Bridgford...

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Squire’s purchases Frensham Garden Centre

Squire's has announced the purchase of Frensham Garden Centre from Wheelhouse Warehousing Ltd. The deal was completed on 1 August 2018...

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July continues the year of extremes

Has the heatwave switched custiomer buying away from gifts and home and more into the garden? That’s a conclusion that can be drawn from July’s GTN Bestsellers analysis. Overall garden centre volume sales for the month were down by 11% while plants and other gardening lines were up on last year...

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Blue Diamond East Bridgford and Webbs of Wychbold are top GCA Midlands centres

GCA Midlands at Brookfields 260718_BD East Bridgeford GTN2.jpg

Blue Diamond's new East Bridgford centre near Nottingham (above) and Webbs of Wychbold (below) won the Midlands GCA Garden Centres of the Year awards announced last week at Brookfields Garden Centre in Nottingham...

GCA Midlands at Brookfields 260718_Webbs Wychbold GTN1.jpg

GCA Midlands Area full results and pictures

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Plant sales continue up on last year

For the fifteenth week in succession the GTN Bestsellers All Plants sales volume index is up on last year which make plant sales on the verge of breaking through the 10% up threshold.

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The Old Railway Line and Monkton Elm are GCA top centres in Wales & West

The Old Railway Line (above) and Monkton Elm (below) won the Garden Centres of the Year Awards in the GCA's Wales & West region...

GCA Wales and West Area full results and pictures

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Gardening heads growth in UK online sales

Online sales of gardening products in the first half of the year have grown by almost 25% year-on-year, says a new retail report...

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Homebase gardening buyers face redundancy as Swindon office set to close

Homebase gardening buyers face redundancy this month when new owners Hilco Capital close the horticulture office at Swindon, according to reports from some of the chain’s suppliers who contacted GTN Xtra last week...

Above: Homebase is back...new signage replaces Bunnings branding at St Albans

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Get set for Cultivating Retail this Autumn

Managing Director of the newly expanded Blue Diamond Group, Alan Roper, features on the programme for Cultivating Retail, the new industry conference and dinner, hosted by HTA and GIMA, taking place at the East Midlands Conference Centre in Nottingham on Tuesday 13 November...

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All the latest news from the world of garden centre catering

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Loch Fyne to sell seafood at Dobbies centres

Loch Fyne have reached a deal with Dobbies to install their seafood counters in the group’s garden centres across the UK...

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Big name speakers confirmed for lunch! food-to-go trade show

Greggs, Caffè Nero, KFC, Tortilla, GAIL's Bakery & Pod are among the big who have confirmed speakers for the lunch! trade show in September...

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Garden centres share The Sun's Prettiest Rose glory

The Sun newspaper has announced the results of its Prettiest Rose Competition run through garden centres across the country with the winner coming from Ayletts Nurseries...

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SunBelievable displays at RHS Hyde Hall by T&M

If you are looking for visual plant inspiration and you are able to get to RHS Garden Hyde Hall this summer then a visit to the Thompson & Morgan Floral Fantasia garden is well worth the effort...

See GTN Xtra's photo gallery of the Floral Fantasia

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Ball Colegrave host successful GCA Planteria Forum

The Garden Centre Association (GCA) held a successful Plant Area Forum at Ball Colegrave at the end of July...

See pictures from the Forum and a full tour of the Ball Colegrave Summer Showcase

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WIN a VIP ticket to spoga+gafa

spoga+gafa are offering GTN Xtra readers the chance to win a VIP ticket to the international trade exhibition...

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GTN August 2018 Issue. To view a digital version click here

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Adam Dunnett leaves Wyevale Nurseries to join Hilliers

Wyevale Nurseries sales and marketing director Adam Dunnett left on Friday to take up a new post as amenity sales director at Hillier Nurseries in Hampshire...

Lowest Top 50 July week for Garden Products

A hot summer spent in the garden resulted in a small increase in garden products sales for July, up by 3% on 2017. The last week of July saw the lowest Top 50 sales total for July in GTN Bestsellers history. Let’s hope that improves through August...

Christmas spuds get growing

July proved a better month for Veg 2 Gro sales, up 5.5% on last year, but overall sales this year to date remain down by over 20% as the missed sales from earlier in the year haven’t been made up...

Growing Media follows plants upward trend

On the back of the continued year on year sales increases of plants, growing media sales show an increase on last year for July, up by 5%...

Sunshine sends garden centre sales soaring

Sales at garden centres across the country continued to soar in June (2018) thanks to the sunny weather according to the Garden Centre Association’s (GCA) Barometer of Trade (BoT) report...

The best of last week's

If you missed last week's GTN Xtra, below are the most-read stories...

Acquisition of outdoor leisure firm Anchor Fast presents new category for Kelkay

Kelkay Ltd has announced today the acquisition of Anchor Fast, marking a further exciting step in the development of AMES UK under the leadership of Managing Director Antony Harker...

20k social media posts greet Blue Diamond's acquisition news

Blue Diamond CEO Alan Roper (pictured) says almost 20,000 positive comments were posted on social media less than 24 hours after the group had announced its acquisition of eight large destination sites from Wyevale Garden Centres...

Dobbies promote COO Jenkins to chief executive role

Dobbies has promoted chief operating officer Graeme Jenkins to chief executive officer following the departure of Nicholas Marshall...

£30k damage in forklift ram raid on Notts garden centre

Thieves smashed their way into QD Group’s Cherry Lane garden centre at Bradmore near Nottingham last Monday, using a stolen forklift truck to enter the office and steal the safe containing three days’ takings...