Garden Centre Groups

There was a spell in the 1980s when small independent gardens were bought up to create chains of garden centres, sometimes it worked and the centres grew and prospered, more often the garden centres lost there local identity and quickly went downhill.
Some chains grew out of a nursery tradition, Van hages, Dobbies, Hilliers, Notcutts, Strikes and Wyevale all had their own nurseries growing plants, before developing garden centres.
Others came from a retailing background Klondyke, Garden store, Country gardens, Blue diamond for example.

Gradually most of the garden centres have split from the nurseries to concentrate on retailing. There was a spell in the 90s when outside investors took over the garden centre market, attracted by successful independent operators, they didn’t really understand the industry and quickly got their fingers burnt.

Wyevale bought a huge amount of good independent garden centres, with central buying they lost their local identity and quickly went downhill.
The owners terra firma put the group up for sale in 2018 and by September 2019 all of the centres have been sold to 57 different buyers
Most of the existing groups took advantage of the prices on offer and increased in size
I think most suppliers in the industry gave a little cheer, a lot have gone to good independents opening up the market again.

2023

The garden centre market continues to evolve, some groups have continued to expand Dobbies, Blue Diamond and British Garden Centres for instance. However, other garden centres have bought nurseries or returned to growing to secure a supply of local products.

Advantages

  • Knowledgeable staff, especially the independent family-owned garden centres.
  • Most have invested in undercover areas to care for the plants.
  • The ability to buy and sell in volume often gives some bargain prices.
  • Good range of stock often using local suppliers.
  • Many have returned to their local roots with very good catering & farm shops.

Disadvantages

  • Some have too many non-gardening distractions.
  • You might hear Christmas carols in October
  • Central buying can lose the local character and narrow the range of stock.
  • Garden centre groups like, filling the stores with concessions to give a guaranteed income, so the usual suspects always turn up Edinburgh woollen mills for instance.
  • Some of the larger groups like to exert head office control and all the centres start to look the same.

Garden centre groups

  • Berwick
  • Blue Diamond Garden Centres
  • British Garden Centres
  • Capital Gardens
  • Caulder’s Garden Centres
  • Chelsea Gardener
  • Cherry Lane
  • Coolings Garden Centres
  • Creative Gardens
  • Dobbies Garden Centres
  • Frosts Garden Centres
  • Gardens Group
  • Grovewell Garden Centres
  • Haskins Garden Centres
  • Hillier Garden Centres
  • Hillview (now British Garden Centres)
  • Homeleigh Garden Centres
  • In-Excess Garden Centres
  • J Parker
  • Klondyke Garden Centres
  • Langlands
  • Longacres Garden Centres
  • Millbrook
  • Newbank
  • Notcutts Garden Centres
  • Otter Garden Centres
  • Pennell’s
  • RHS plant centres
  • Rosebourne
  • Scotsdales Garden Centres
  • Squire’s Garden Centres
  • Stewarts Garden Centres
  • Tates of Sussex Garden Centres
  • Thompsons
  • Van Hage (now Blue Diamond)
  • Webbs Garden Centres
  • Whitehall
  • Wyevale Garden Centres