I always feel that this is a nice quiet time of year as we slowly drift towards the peak gardening season that lies maybe only six or seven weeks away.
It really isn’t that far away and of course there is actually loads to do, it’s not a quiet time. Christmas must go and the garden centre reinvents itself as, well, a garden centre.
The good news is that the quieter days mean that our Garden Centre Association (GCA) Annual Conference gets to take centre stage and we can look forward to meeting lots of our industry colleagues to discuss the highlights of the year just past but more importantly the plans for the year ahead.
It’s a special year this year too as it’s our 60th anniversary!
There is no doubt that the year ahead will bring its challenges with the current cost base already hanging heavily on all small and medium sized businesses. Then we have the new rates bills to look forward to, another cost, for which we get nothing more in return.
These costs have to be absorbed and savings considered to be able to combat this. We must hope that the weather is once again on our side as that will certainly help significantly. We are fortunate that the work done by our excellent industry is currently standing us in good stead as we continue to buck the negative trends that much of the rest of retail are suffering.
In fact, I note recent Barclaycard figures suggesting that garden centres were the only retail sector to show positive growth in both sales and customer numbers in December. A well done to our hard working and innovative industry.
Our annual conference has been organised by our Chairman Elect, Ben Harrison from Haskins Garden Centres, which has five garden centres in Hampshire, Sussex, Surrey and Dorset.
There is a great array of speakers, covering a range of relevant topics, all under the overarching theme of growing a better future. On Monday we look forward to hearing from Edoardo Bortolato on how we can make use of AI in our businesses. He will cover cost savings, stock control, customer service and shrinkage with real examples of IT programs that are available for use in business today.
We then hear from Kat Thorne with a talk entitled The Morning Game Changer. Here she will discuss things that you can do to improve your performance, and that of your team, by making small changes to your usual behaviour. These changes will also potentially help your own wellbeing too.
Monday is rounded off with a fireside chat, hosted by our current Chairman, Will Blake from St Peters Garden Centre in Worcester, with that guru of retail Mary Portas. Mary has had a great career in retail with one of the highlights being her successes at Harvey Nicholls. She will be giving us lots of ideas on where retail is going and how garden centres can benefit from this. She is also very keen to take questions from the audience so if you are coming, please come prepared.
Tuesday sees us getting updates from a number of our industry charities and associated bodies such as the National Gardens Scheme.
We will then have our dose of the current state of the economy with two experts from HSBC followed by Tamsin Edwards, a climate scientist telling us what to expect from global warming.
The whole event concludes with the ever popular and hugely entertaining Gyles Brandreth.
Who says January is a bit slow!
The GCA represents more than 200 garden centres nationwide.
Through sharing information and its inspection programme the GCA helps members to achieve high standards in customer service, plant quality and reliability.
The 2026 GCA Conference takes place at Carden Park Chester from January 25 until 28.
To find out more and to book tickets, please visit the conference pages in the members’ section of the body’s website or go directly to https://gca.digitickets.co.uk/.
