gtn gardentradenews.co.uk
change that Colin has seen but catering has had the biggest effect. “The first tea room I opened was just for the staff. I had to furnish it on a shoestring and the bus garage over the road had loads of spare seats from the trolley busses. We had this lovely East End of London lady, Eileen, who made the tea, it was loose tea in the pot with hot water added all morning. It was as strong as anything. “Customers used to come in too so in the end it got so busy I moved the staff out and we started selling biscuits and cakes. “We weren’t the first but we had a public coffee shop here by 1966, as a result of public demand. I had no idea the growth would take us to where we are today. Across all our centres we have thousands of covers, hundreds of people having meals at every time of the day and lattes for nearly £3. It’s amazing how important that is to us now.” But Colin quickly adds: “We must not lose sight of our plants, ever. “Our planteria used to be very basic, all on one level but we now use height to stock more plants, especially the amount of hanging baskets we sell. It’s always better to
keep them up. We use metal trees as well, but the constructions the plants team make have helped sell more and take up less floor space which creates a nice feeling. We sell more from our Shade Beds than our A-Z nowadays. “I do enjoy walking around the planterias, and visiting a wholesaler or a growing nursery still gives me a real kick. Nothing else you sell quite gives you that thrill than plants.” Wallflowers are an example of the plant retailing changes Colin has seen. “We used to grow a lot, selling bunches for 1/6d. Now we sell a few in a pot for £4 and Erysimum Bowes Mauve single plants in a pot for £7 or £8. I used to dig 100-200 wallflowers every morning, never digging more than I thought we could sell in a day. The way we used to do it was old fashioned and it worked because we grew on site. Now we don’t grow anything, so we have to buy plants in pots to sell. Perrenials are a huge change too with people now treating them as bedding plants and as a result we are selling loads more.” Continued over the page
EDITORIAL & ADVERTISING Garden Trade News, The Old School, 4 Crowland Road, Eye, Peterborough PE6 7TN Tel 01733 775700 Fax 01733 775838 gardentradenews@tgcmc.co.uk www.gardentradenews.co.uk THE GTN TEAM Editor: Neil Pope neil.pope@tgcmc.co.uk Associate Editor: Mike Wyatt mike.wyatt@tgcmc.co.uk Director: Trevor Pfeiffer trevor.pfeiffer@tgcmc.co.uk Publisher: Mandy Davies mandy.davies@tgcmc.co.uk Advertising: Alan Burdon alan.burdon@tgcmc.co.uk Ben Greenwood ben.greenwood@tgcmc.co.uk HOW TO SUBSCRIBE Tel 01733 775700 or email subscriptions@gardentradenews.co.uk Subscription rates UK: £145 Subscription includes a password for full access to GTN Online plus a weekly copy of GTN Bestsellers OUR PUBLISHERS GTN is published by Potting Shed Press Ltd, who also publish: * www.gardentradenews.co.uk website * Weekly GTN Xtra and Pet Trade Xtra newsletters * Garden Radio * Official Glee Catalogue and Glee Daily News Online – the only official guides to the garden industry’s leading annual trade show
Squire’s planterias now use plenty of height in their displays to get more stock in a smaller space.
www.gardentradenews.co.uk
SMALL PRINT All material © Potting Shed Press 2018. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form whatsoever, either for sale or not, without the express permission of the publishers. The information contained in this publication is published in good faith and every effort has been made to ensure its accuracy. Potting Shed Press Ltd cannot accept responsibility for any error or misrepresentation. All liability for loss, disappointment, negligence or other damage caused by reliance on information contained in this publication or in the event of any bankruptcy or liquidation or cessation of the trade of any company, individual or firm mentioned, is hereby excluded.
February 2018 3