Stewart Garden Grow Your Own tour with Pippa Greenwood
Thursday 7 March: Ruxley Manor Garden Centre, Maidstone Road, Sidcup, Kent, DA14 5BQ
Tel: 020 8300 0084 www.ruxley-manor.co.uk
Pippa Greenwood, BBC Gardeners’ Question Time panellist and BBC Gardeners’ World columnist, will be visiting Ruxley Manor Garden Centre in Kent on Thursday 7 March between 10am and 2pm.
Pippa Greenwood, the popular gardening broadcaster and writer, has teamed up with Stewart Garden, the market leader in quality garden products, to launch a tour around eight garden centres in England, starting at Ruxley Manor Garden Centre on Thursday March 7.
The tour is part of Stewart Garden’s partnership with Pippa, which commenced in 2011, and follows the successful series of visits to centres across the country earlier in 2012, encouraging people to grow their own produce.
Throughout the tour, Pippa Greenwood will explain the principles of grow your own and give practical demonstrations of potting, creating growing beds and propagation. Comprehensive information sheets written by Pippa and complementing the demonstrations will also be available to visitors.
Started as a family business, Ruxley Manor Garden Centre is a member of The Garden Centre Association and The Horticultural Trades Association, and also won the prize for the 'Most Improved Garden Centre' in the UK in 2008: an ideal location Stewart Garden Grow Your Own Tour with Pippa Greenwood.
Lisa Bottomley from Ruxley Manor says “We’re delighted to have a gardening guru visit our garden centre. Pippa is an inspiration and our customers will benefit immensely from her practical demonstrations”
While at Ruxley Manor Garden Centre, Pippa will take a tour of the garden centre, and she will be talking with the staff and customers, answering their questions. Visitors are encouraged to email questions in to Ruxley Manor Garden Centre ahead of Pippa’s visit.
Agenda for the day:
10:00 am Pippa Greenwood arrives at Ruxely Manor Garden Centre where she will talking with the media and local press
10:30 am Talk, advice & demonstration of how to maximise propagation by Pippa Greenwood
12:00 pm Book signing of Pippa Greenwood’s book, ‘The Gardener’s Calendar’
1:00 pm Pippa Greenwood will spend time in the Garden sundries department talking to customers
Motivated by increasing food prices, more and more people are opting to grow their own fruit and vegetables. The trend shows no sign of slowing down.
Even people who don’t have gardens can enjoy the benefits of grow your own: an impressive range can be grown on a balcony or a small back yard.
Speaking of the upcoming tour, Pippa said, “The popularity of last year’s tour proved that there’s a big demand for growing your own products, information and advice. We met many people who want to increase their knowledge and develop their skills. The Stewart Garden range demonstrates its strong commitment to these customers. Together we can help gardeners across the country grow great vegetables and have fun while saving money.”
Other tour dates and locations for 2013 are:
Thursday 14 March Palmers Garden Centre. St John’s, Enderby, Leicester
Thursday 11 April Squire’s Garden Centre, Sixth Cross Road, Twickenham, Middlesex
Thursday 18 April Thetford Garden Centre, Kilverstone, Thetford, Norfolk
Thursday 25 April Trago Mills, Trago Mills Liverton Newton Abbot, Devon
Thursday 9 May Houghton Hall Garden Centre, Houghton, Carlisle
Wednesday 15 May Wentworth Garden Centre, Hague Lane, Wentworth, S Yorkshire
Thursday 23 May High Legh Garden Centre, High Legh, Knutsford, Cheshire
Visitors wishing to attend Stewart Garden Grow Your Own Tour with Pippa Greenwood should contact the garden centres direct. More information about the tour will appear on Pippa Greenwood’s Stewart Garden blog at www.stewart-garden.co.uk/blog.
For more information about Stewart Garden, visit www.stewart-garden.co.uk
Follow us on Twitter @StewartGarden
Follow Pippa on Twitter @PippaGreenwood
Like our Facebook page www.facebook.com/StewartCompany
For more information about Pippa Greenwood and ‘Grow Your Own with Pippa Greenwood’, visit www.pippagreenwood.com.
Ends
Editor’s notes:
Pippa Greenwood
Pippa Greenwood trained as a botanist at Durham University (BSc hons) and then gained an MSc in Crop Protection at Reading University. In 2007, Pippa was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Science (DSc) by the University of Durham for her work in gardening and its science.
In 1985 she joined the staff of the Royal Horticultural Society’s Garden at Wisley in Surrey, where she ran the Plant Pathology Department, answering several thousand queries from gardeners every year.
In 1988, Pippa began working for the BBC, joining Alan Titchmarsh for the gardening slot on BBC 1’s Daytime Live.
From 1989 until 2002, she was a regular presenter on BBC 2’s Gardeners’ World, presenting many items on garden pests and diseases, science and gardening, as well as creating and running her organic kitchen garden from her own Hampshire garden.
Pippa is a regular panellist on BBC Radio 4’s Gardeners’ Question Time, travelling the length and breadth of the country to present the programme throughout the year. In 2000, 2001 and 2002 Pippa presented her own series, Growing Science on Radio 4. For several years Pippa hosted BBC Radio Solent’s Topsoil with Pippa Greenwood, a three-hour gardening and music show.
Pippa has guested on a number of television and radio programmes including Tomorrow’s World, You and Yours, Woman’s Hour, BBC Breakfast, This Morning, GMTV, Breakaway, Grass Roots and Call my Bluff. She was a judge for the BBC Gardener of The Year competition in 2001.
Pippa was the gardening consultant for the ITV murder mystery series, Rosemary and Thyme starring Pam Ferris and Felicity Kendal, advising on the gardening sub-plot and other plant related matters, and the gardening personalities of the two actresses!
Pippa has several regular writing commitments including BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine, and a monthly page in ‘NFU Countryside Magazine’.
For 18 years Pippa was the gardening columnist for The Mirror newspaper. Pippa writes a blog for BBC Gardeners’ World Website and has her own website, www.pippagreenwood.com. Here she writes a gardening blog and offers ‘Grow Your Own with Pippa Greenwood’ (garden ready vegetable plants plus weekly advice emails), a garden advice service called ‘Ask Pippa’, and a range of grow your own related products.
Pippa has written many books including the bestsellers, New Gardener (in excess of one and a quarter million copies sold), Gardening Hints and Tips, Garden Pests and Diseases, Garden Problem Solver, Flower Gardener, Pippa’s Organic Kitchen Garden, A Garden for All Seasons, Pippa Greenwood’s Gardening Year and 1001 Ways To Be A Better Gardener. She co-authored The Gardeners’ Question Time book. Her latest book is A Gardener’s Calendar.
Pippa lectures, hosts gardening tours and gives gardening-related demonstrations across the UK and abroad.
Pippa lives in Hampshire where she gardens on a windswept hillside with a strongly alkaline, heavy-clay soil.
www.pippagreenwood.com offers ‘Grow Your Own with Pippa Greenwood’ and a range of grow-your-own-related products.
Editorial contacts:
Sara Tye or Emma De Maio
redheadPR
Tel: 07786 176 617 or 07921 160 134
Email: sara@redheadpr.co.uk or emma@redheadpr.co.uk
Stewart - backgrounder
Stewart is the UK market leader in the manufacture and supply of technical plastic moulded products for the gardening, home and professional catering sectors. The company offers an extensive portfolio of products ranging from garden planters and propagators, to food containers and specialist storage products. Three specialist divisions also work across the aerospace, automotive and medical industries.
The company employs 70 permanent staff and 30 seasonal workers at a purpose-built 178,000 sq ft facility in Banbury, Oxon, which opened in September 2012. The factory and distribution centre includes state of the art machinery giving Stewart a world class advantage over its UK competitors.
It enjoyed a turnover of £13 million in 2010.
Stewart is headed by CEO Richard Butler who built his career in the technical plastics and rubber sector and has worked for leading manufacturers in the aerospace and automotive sector.
Originally established in 1945 the company was the subject of a BIMBO (buy-in/ management buyout) in June 2011. ECI, the mid-market private equity specialist, invested £12 million in the company in a deal that valued the business at £17 million.
Stewart Garden produces grow your own products, watering, pots, propagators and garden accessories and sundries. These are available in over 1600 outlets across the UK and Eire including major DIY outlets such as Homebase and Wilkinsons and garden centres across the UK such as Dobbies and Klondyke/Strikes, The Garden Centre Group and some 600 plus independent garden centres.
Stewart Garden plays an active role in the gardening and leisure industry through its membership of:
- GIMA – the Garden Industry Manufacturers Association
- Gardenex – the Federation of Garden and Leisure Manufacturers Limited
- HTA – the Horticultural Trades Association
Stewart won the House Beautiful Best Product Garden Category in 2005 and the Klondyke Dry Goods Supplier Award in 2010. The company was a GIMA Awards - POS Finalist in 2009, and Best of British Finalist in 2011. It’s Heat and Grow Thermostatic Propagator was top in the Which? Gardening Best Buy test on windowsill propagators 2011.
Stewart Home provides food storage and homewares products. These comprise of the Refine, Essentials and Seal Fresh food and drink storage collections, offering hygienic storage in a wide range of colours and shapes.
Stewart Catering supplies the Gastronorm and Seal Fresh food storage ranges to the catering industry and specialist cook shops via wholesale and cash and carry outlets.
Other Stewart divisions are:
Stewart Aerospace
Stewart Automotive
Stewart Medical
Each division of Stewart is BS ISO 9001-2000 and TS16949 accredited and operates from the company’s manufacturing, warehousing and distribution centre in Banbury, Oxon.
For more information visit www.stewartcompany.co.uk
