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Why Pleydell Smithyman Values Work For Everyone
Our core values—Passion, Empathy, Solution Focus, and Partnership—are more than just words. They shape our thinking, guide our relationships, and support a ‘client first’ approach in all aspects of our work.

Andrew Burton
5 days ago2 min read


Pleydell Smithyman Launch Business Health Check Service
This tailored Health Check is designed to offer practical support by identifying ways to strengthen profitability and efficiency, without adding unnecessary complexity or cost.

Andrew Burton
Jun 91 min read


Why Benchmarking Is the Secret to Growing a Stronger Garden Centre
Running a garden centre isn’t just about selling beautiful plants or having the best cafe—it’s about growing a thriving, efficient, and competitive business. And just like plants need the right conditions to flourish, your business needs the right insights to grow.

Andrew Burton
Jun 23 min read


Garden Centre Weather Update for June 2025
At Pleydell Smithyman we are aware that the weather has a massive impact on trade, so we do a monthly weather forecast review in our news articles.

Andrew Burton
Jun 23 min read


Garden Centre Business Health Check: Growing Success From the Ground Up
Running a garden centre isn't just about keeping things going and plants alive—it’s about keeping your business driving forward and...

Andrew Burton
Jun 22 min read


How Specific Words Impact On Website Hits
Pleydell Smithyman have recently been working with a number of garden centres and farm shops that are focusing on website and marketing awareness for their customers.

Andrew Burton
May 132 min read


May 2025 Long Term Weather Forecast for Garden Centres
It has been a great start to the gardening season, with the good weather having a really positive impact on trade. As we have seen in Garden Centre Associaion Barometre of Trade and the HTA Market Updates, trade is up, and the weather has been a massive factor in this!

Andrew Burton
May 13 min read


How Technology is Helping Garden Centre Workers, Not Replacing Them
There is no hiding from it, and we all know it; technology developments and AI are buzzwords on everyone’s lips.

Andrew Burton
Apr 174 min read


Monkton Elm Opens New Restaurant
Monkton Elm Garden Centre embarked on an exciting re-development to refurbish and extend their highly regarded and popular Elm Tree Restaurant.Â

Andrew Burton
Mar 281 min read


2025 Is The Year Of Courage
As we step into 2025, the year of courage, businesses are bracing for a transformative journey. The government policy and tax changes of 2024 have posed significant challenges, leading to increased costs across the industry.

Andrew Burton
Feb 33 min read


How Are The Changing Demographics Going To Affect Garden Centres?
It’s a changing world. It seems that since 2020, we have been going through an ever-evolving life. The word ‘Permacrisis’ hit the Oxford English dictionary in 2022, a word describing the feeling of living through a period of war, inflation, and political instability.

Andrew Burton
Dec 16, 20244 min read


What Makes Catering Successful In A Garden Centre?
What has changed in the past few years? In short, pretty much everything!
Garden centres are not standing still – they are improving!Â

Andrew Burton
Nov 21, 20244 min read


Pleydell Smithyman Designs To Drive Sales At Staverton Nursery
On the 12th April 2023 Staverton Nursery, experienced a devastating fire which destroyed half of their retail space, coffee shop and offices. Eighteen months later, Staverton Nursery, near Lewes in East Sussex have rebuilt and opened its brand new restaurant and food hall on 23rd October 2024.

Andrew Burton
Oct 24, 20243 min read


How Garden Centres Are Reacting To The Adverse Weather Impact
For years now Garden Centres have been impacted by the weather. This year has been no difference and in the Horticulture Trade Association July Market Update, they reported that challenging trading conditions for garden centres continued in June 2024 due to ongoing adverse wet weather, which significantly affected sales in core gardening categories.

Andrew Burton
Aug 26, 20242 min read


Why Does Design Matter So Much To A Garden Centre?
Essentially, what we have observed, especially since the turn of the century, is the personalities of our garden centres changing, allowing different businesses to have different brands and propositions, with the aim to give their customers more choice and create a point of difference for themselves.

Andrew Burton
Aug 26, 20244 min read


How Future Proofing Can Help Your Business
It is an interesting word ‘sustainability’. It is a word that is on everyone’s lips and it’s something that is so important to our garden centre industry.

Andrew Burton
Jun 4, 20244 min read


Reacting to the Living Wage Increase
There are a lot more areas for businesses to look at when looking at their costs vs profit, and what journey each individual business goes on depends on ‘where they are in their journey already.’

Andrew Burton
May 10, 20245 min read


Harvesting Growth with Technology
By giving more specific data and confidence to owners and management, what I am seeing is the dawn of even more technology to help data analysis, which is identifying clear information and taking the risk out of future development.

Andrew Burton
Apr 18, 20244 min read


Insights For Navigating the New Year
Planning ahead doesn’t come easily to everyone – sometimes due to time restraints or higher priorities, or because of team size and skillset – however, as a leader of your business, failing to consider your vision and strategy will often come back to bite you.

Andrew Burton
Jan 8, 20244 min read
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