Blue Diamond To Open Two New Garden Centres Before Easter

lan Roper revealed to 700 staff at last night’s spectacular Folies Bergere style awards evening that Blue Diamond would have two more garden centres by Easter.  The first will be in the Cotswolds, the second in the Midlands.  Together they will add £18m to the group’s turnover.

Companies will go under

At the same time he predicted that some companies will go under if they don’t act now to deal with inflation.  He explained to staff that this is the reason why they are seeing his team acting to mitigate increased costs. 

He insisted, “We won’t be history.”  In the last year there have been refurbishments at Melbicks and Mere Park.  New facilities have been added at Bicester including a beauty and hair salon.

At the moment it is difficult to recruit Chef’s, but Roper said it will get easier later in the year as restaurants go under.

National Trust partnership

Last year the group's turnover grew £330m, topping the £300m level for the first time.  However customer numbers are down on the Covid period while average spend has grown.  This, said the MD, begs the question, where have all the new lockdown gardener’s gone?

“It’s not about size but quality,” said Roper as he outlined steps to enhance the group’s horticultural credibility.  This year will see the launch of the Bridgemere Show Gardens. 

The recently announced partnership with the National Trust will develop.  This spring a range of plants ,seeds and bulbs has bee introduced based on the NT plant collections.  Later there will be an auction of apple trees propagated from the original Sir Isaac Newton tree.  And, next year, Blue Diamond will share a main show garden at Chelsea with NT.

Source : Reproduced with kind permission from George Bullivant at Gardenforum

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