The 3-Day Pre Glee Tour

See how 9 Top Class Garden Centers merchandise the products you will see at Glee!

Take a Sneak Peak

Click on the images below to see a larger version.

Stratford Garden Centre www.stratfordgardencentre.co.uk This newly built GC has all the elements of a modern British facility
Great signs and floors, even a bakery by the entrance — smells great!
Clear, modern graphics
Cafes are the standard in English GCs

	Wyevale Garden Centre www.wyevale.co.uk The new GC is the anchor of this long outdoor mall including 10 other lifestyle retailers including Laura Ashley
	The spacious GC building is contemporary but with warm elements of wood and stone. There are two restaurants and a striking cut flower boutique at the entrance
	The nursery offers large areas of canopy shopping
	A wide wrap around covered walkway ensures a dry experience!
	Demonstration patios and landscapes are a great feature with easy to follow interpretation signs
	See the use of classy flooring to define the race track, while lighting and POP are well understood

Daylesford Organic Farmshop in Daylesford www.daylesfordorganic.com This company has stores in London but their home farm, gourmet store and restaurant shows what can be done with a few old farm buildings
Converting a centuries old Cotswold farm, sets the expectation and the quality of operation
Each courtyard has its surprises, this one is classic English gardening where you will also find organic household supplies, clothing and even a complete wellness centre for yoga, massage and meditation
You can even buy their custom designed chicken houses for those organic eggs

	Webbs of Wychbold www.webbsofwychbold.co.uk This powerhouse of a GC built a new 64,000 sq ft main store in 2006
	Service is a key to Webb's success
	Great cross merchandising of lifestyle sets
	Their new food hall is a showpiece for any company not just a GC!
	But they still have an enviable nursery, black benches originated here!
	The 1930's cottage now housing Spode china

Woodford Park Garden Centre www.woodfordparkgc.co.uk A modern and upscale development of an old GC, features a fresh food offer right inside the door
Lighting, flooring, fixtures and POP lead the journey
Keeping an important category looking impulsive
Less means more sales at this high volume, high class GC
Great demonstration of the various patio surfaces on offer for installation

	Bents Garden & Home www.bents.co.uk The 44,000 sq ft open sky greenhouse, was built over what was 'Britain's Best Outside Sales Area'
	Their first display inside the entrance sets the expectation
	A browsing customer is tempted by one of our sponsors, Scheurich
	We will have dinner in their 600 seat restaurant, which now overlooks the open sky greenhouse
	Home grown color set against a demonstration house setting (yes they are still growers too!)
	Table top is a category with much potential

Dobbies Garden World Southport www.dobbies.com/southport-garden-centre.aspx Newly opened in 2008, with a Dobbies signature store design, one of their 20+ GCs in the chain
Wide, high and stylish hoops provide canopy
The comprehensive information centre inspires shoppers to read, learn, relate and do!
Dobbies are making environmental gardening a big part of their position with everything from ponds for wildlife to green roofs
Self service through easy to follow and fun to do projects involves customers in the outcome of their garden dreams

	Trebaron Garden Centre www.trebaron.co.uk A striking, yet affordable building is the lesson here
	Custom benching, clear aisles and a bright 'feel' to the displays are found throughout
	Great use of grower-merchandising in a hot spot
	The topiarys' height pulls you in to this display!

Trentham Garden Centre www.trenthamgardencentre.co.uk This 54,000 sq ft store opened in 2004 as the flagship for the 11 store Blue Diamond GC chain
Large dramatic displays match the building
A clear, wide racetrack leads shoppers through all departments to the outside nursery
The central features gives both height and interesting display loggias
This is "gardening" to many consumers, tempted?
Lighting, fixtures and displays are more like an upscale department store, but the nursery is just as good outside too!
Faux structures create ambiance in the covered canopy area
Outside, the racetrack continues over two bridges and past whimsical displays like this.
We will have lunch in one of their three Italian themed restaurants
Their Group Director of Retailing, Alan Roper, was a featured speaker at ANLA's 2006 Management Clinic and is seen here addressing our 2007 tour

	The Glee Show www.gleebirmingham.com More options on patio furniture than you can shake a citronella candle at!
	Lots of new and different products to discover at the home of gardening and leisure
	A new wriggle on an old idea — great display too
	As this Dutch houseplant poster shows, the business is less about "stuff" and more about "self" in this era

Hotels

Alveston Manor Stratford-upon-Avon www.macdonaldhotels.co.uk/alvestonmanor/ The hotel does not have its own site but the link above shows photographs of this 16th Century hotel in Stratford on Avon where the first performance of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" was performed under the huge Cedar in the garden. Our tour starts from this historic English market town, with museums, theater, canal boats, old pubs and shopping!
Village Hotel Warrington www.village-hotels.co.uk All newly remodeled with modern style, a pub, restaurant, free WIFI and fitness club with pool and exercise equipment.
Crowne Plaza Hotel SBirmingham NEC www.birminghamnec.crowneplaza.com Our base for Glee — a five minute walk to the show
Coombe Abbey Hotel www.coombeabbey.com You've got to see the website! Click on "Video Portal", click "Intro" and then "Play" and be amazed!
Maybe you'll get a turret room overlooking the moat
. . . . . . . or a room overlooking the gardens
. . . . . . . or discover a fish leaping from a hedge

Photos and Inspiration From Our Previous English Garden Center Tours

	Container gardening is hot in Britain too and you'll take home lots of great display ideas.
	One of Trentham's many exciting features is this 'room within a room' concept taken outside, to draw customers across the river that runs through the plant area.
	Grouping trees by benefit with supporting signage
	Modern stone accent pieces are well displayed

Because British garden retailing is largely self service, growers share the task of impulse creation.
This attention-getting covered walkway structure has proven very popular with UK retailers and will be on show at Glee.
Covered shopping, quality plants, upscale benching and volume presentation are the essence of British centers.
Potting benches are purposely put in a high profile area, keeping them clean and impulsive.

	Clear wide aisles of different colors and circles at intersection prove great for traffic flow.
	Big buildings need big graphics
	Nice linking of pillows and lamps
	This long impressive water features greets customers as they enter the huge store and insures they turn right to follow the prescribed traffic flow.

Big and new doesn't mean that a garden center can't have cute or effective merchandising! Here this life-size plush cow keeps the focus on bags of grass seed.
Take a sneak peek at the stunning Christmas displays being constructed.
This dramatic Christmas theme display at Bent's is typical of the panache and creativity in their team.
Dramatic canvas structure forming a great greenhouse vista at Grosvenor GC

The booths at Glee always suggest in-store merchandising ideas, whether traditional or contemporary.
Spend your last night at this "Hotel Like No Other", parts of which were built in the 12th century.
Coombe Abbey's gardens were laid out in the 18th Century by the famous Capability Brown, and are part of the 800 acre estate, but only 40 minutes from Glee.
Unwind on our last night together at a Medieval Banquet with the Ladies of Court circa 1580 (or demonstrate your dancing skills like Steve Gallion of Stauffer's in PA did!)

	More fun on the tour sending Bench Systems a camera phone "thank you" for sponsoring lunch
	Tina Lee from DeWayne's in NC thanking Boyd Douglas Davies and Alan Miles at Webb's during our 2007 visit. We have taken the tour to Webb's over the years, more than any other GC.
	Chuck Johnson from TN thanking Stratford GC manager Jo Phillpott on our first tour visit there in 2007. We still keep finding new and interesting places!
	Network in the centers with your fellow travelers, team up to cover more ideas (C Miller, J Crowell, D Yurgel, G Blondell & M Odenwald Blondell).