Four ways to enhance your garden centre this winter ready for Spring 2025
Garden centres have never been bigger business. In fact, according to the Horticultural Traders Association (HTA) two thirds of British adults visit a garden centre every year. So, with garden centres more popular than ever, how can you upgrade your centre to meet growing demand?
We know that increasingly, garden centre visitors aren’t just going to stock up on plants and gardening equipment. Many now go looking for ‘destination’ shopping experiences and are hoping to find dining and play options as well as garden, home, and gifting inspiration, when they get there.
So, how can you give these ‘destination’ shoppers what they are looking for, without breaking the bank?
In the last two years we’ve carried out enhancement projects and garden centre canopy installations for over 50 garden centres across the UK, with these four projects our most popular and cost-effective upgrades:
- Canopied retail areas: We’ve helped garden centres like Simpsons Garden Centre in Inverness to significantly increase their available year-round retail space by creating vast canopied outdoor areas that protect people and stock from rain, wind, and harmful UV rays. The beautiful barrel-vaulted canopied area we created for Simpsons is the largest structure of its kind in the UK and measures a huge 52m x 25m!
- Upgrading existing retail spaces: We’re passionate about cost-effective solutions and can help convert existing canopied areas into fully enclosed shop space to showcase furniture, gifting, and even clothing ranges. We helped Trowell Garden Centre in Nottingham do just this by covering an existing steel canopy with steel metal sheeting and 300mm insulation, to create a fully weather-proof retail space for a fraction of the cost of a new build.
- Covered play and dining areas: We’re also creating more and more covered play and dining spaces, with our unique Opal 60 canopy fabric shielding customers from rain and harmful UV rays, whilst allowing 60% daylight penetration to save on lighting costs (most canopy roofing only allows up to 30% light penetration).
- More enticing entrances: Finally, our in-house design team can work with you to create a more impressive frontage to entice customers in. We’ve worked alongside teams at Smith’s Nurseries in Bagington, Old Barn Garden Centre in Horsham and Hillier Garden Centre in Three Legged Cross to do just this and all three have seen significant upturns in footfall as a result!
So, if you’re wanting Spring and Summer 2025 to be your best ever seasons, why not get in touch to arrange a site visit? Who knows? Our expert teams might just spot a golden opportunity you’d never even considered before.
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