British Garden Centres expands plant production facilities

British Garden Centres has let a large nursery production unit with the capacity to produce two million retail ready plants each year. The site in Warwickshire has been acquired from Hawkesmill Nurseries, which built the glasshouse, tunnel and open-bed nursery site in 2017.

“As British Garden Centres, it won’t surprise anyone that we are increasing our production facilities in the UK,” explains Boyd J Douglas-Davies, plants & PR director for the group, which is the UK’s largest family-run garden centre business. “I’ve known the incredible plants that Hawkesmill has produced for years from this unit and their other sites so jumped at the opportunity to take on this nursery.”

The new nursery, to be known as Temple Nursery in recognition of the local area, will complement the growing the business already undertakes at its Woodthorpe Nursery – the birthplace of the British Garden Centres group – and Fretherne Nursery, a site leased from Glendale Horticulture.

Richard Evans, director of Hawkesmill Nurseries says: “My brother, John, and I have weighed up our many options and decided that the team at British Garden Centres were best placed to take on the unit at Temple and develop further the original vision for it. Their ambitious production plans and the guaranteed customer will ensure many jobs are available for the local workforce”.

British Garden Centres has taken on five growers for the new site, including the newly appointed group nursery manager, Nigel Coombs, and will be looking to recruit additional colleagues this year.

Dougals-Davies says: “Whilst this additional unit will give us the potential to produce two million retail ready plants a year it won’t take away anything from our UK suppliers as our rate of growth, combined with our planned move towards more British plants, will absorb these plants and more.”