Tristan grew up alongside Perrywood Garden Centre & Nurseries, working at weekends and holidays in the family-run business.

Studied mechanical engineering, and worked in the oil and gas and latterly renewable energy sectors.  Left full-time employment in 2014 to return to study, completing an MSc in Technology Entrepreneurship at UCL in 2016.  Came back to Perrywood in 2017, now operations director responsible for projects, warehousing and logistics, facilities and H&S, and operational responsibility for the growing nursery.

Interested in how we tackle key subjects such as sustainability, biosecurity and plant passporting.  Keen to learn from and contribute to networking and collaboration opportunities within the industry.

Perrywood Garden Centre is a family run business with two centres in Tiptree, Essex and Sudbury, Suffolk.

Andy has run his own business development consultancy practice, supporting the horticulture and gardening industry for the past 19 years. Prior to that, he worked for Sainsbury’s Homebase for 19 years from the early days of the gardening and home enhancement boom, through the acquisition of Texas Homecare, reaching the position of Head of Horticulture and Garden Centre Trading for the combined 300 store business.

Fiona Dean is a Director at Ravensworth Nurseries Ltd, near Richmond in North Yorkshire, a member of the HTA since 1984. On the Nursery they contract grow for local Authorities and for other Wholesale outlets, alongside operating their own Retail area. In 1995 they developed the starter plant, seedlings and plug range, named Watch em Grow, for an early sales package to other garden centres, complete with full-colour point of sale. Almost all their bedding plants are grown from seed or cuttings raised on site. The crops grown include summer and winter bedding plants, poinsettias and cyclamen, They also produce large quantities of seasonal added value items such as hanging baskets, outdoor planters, traditional holly wreaths and indoor planted arrangements. The Nursery currently employs 19 full-time members of staff with additional staff being employed, seasonally, throughout the year.

Having studied a BTEC Diploma in Science at York College of Arts and Technology, Fiona joined the family business 35 years ago.  She is involved in all aspects of the business, both retail and wholesale, accounts and marketing. Fiona is passionate about our industry and enjoys passing on knowledge to retail customers old and new, through workshops ran at the Nursery.

mollie.higginson@newleafplants.co.uk

Mollie grew up in the horticultural industry, from weeding plants at her family nursery in school holidays, to now being a sales representative of the northern region for New Leaf Plants.

Mollie has worked in every area of the nursery, from propagation, tidying plants to managing our busy dispatch area. She has seen how all sides of the business work and understand the strains and joy of running a plant nursery and working in Horticulture.

In 2019, Mollie, along with Natalie Porter and Liam Cleary, set up YPHA (Young People in Horticulture Association), and now has over 100 members of under 35’s working in all areas of horticulture, from garden centres, growers and gardeners.

With this experience behind her, Mollie hopes she will be able to bring a lot to the council, with points of view from young horticulturalists as well as listening to all members. She is keen to learn from other members experiences and to further her knowledge within horticulture, and looks forward to representing her local region.

admin@swarkestonenursery.co.uk

Laura is a Director at Swarkestone Nursery, South Derbyshire. Swarkestone Nursery is a family business that has been in her family for many generations, with its beginnings in Market Gardening. In 2000, they adapted the business to become a retail nursery.

Laura followed in her father's footsteps and studied at Pershore College and in 2009 received a BSc (Hons) in Production Horticulture. She was then hired at Bransford Webbs, a wholesale nursery in Worcestershire, growing herbaceous perennials and preparing them for despatch. This was followed by a year working as a garden centre assistant in New Zealand. Upon her return home she was thrown in at the deep end and became the Catering Manager; this was a real baptism by fire. Following this, Laura was promoted to General Manager which is the position she currently holds. Laura is involved in all aspects of the business including nursery production, retail and on special occasions the odd spot of pot washing.

Swarkestone Nursery belongs to both the RDF and RBIS schemes where Laura has the pleasure of hearing from other garden centres, sharing their experiences and plans for the future. The nursery finds both of these HTA schemes very inspiring and many of their best ideas have stemmed from these visits.

After studying for a degree in Applied Chemistry at the University of Kingston, Clare started her professional career as a product formulation chemist at S C Johnson Wax before moving into FMCG retail. She spent the next 20 years working with Tesco, Sainsburys and Waitrose as a retailer branded Technical
Manager, Buyer and Responsible Sourcing Manager. She is a qualified site auditor for both Technical and Ethical site compliance and has been part of the
stakeholder team which created the current version of the BRC non-food Audit standard and the soon to be published PAS 5070: How to launch a product safely on the market.

In 2017 she made the move into the DIY sector with a role as Head of Quality at Travis Perkins Group (Wickes/Toolstation) before moving into her current with Kingfisher Plc. (B&Q and Screwfix) as  Regulatory Compliance Manager for the UK Region, in 2019. 

Clare welcomes the opportunity to share her knowledge and experiences further to support the aims of the HTA.

As Business Development and Marketing Manager of Pugh’s Garden Centre’s based in South Wales, Nicola is responsible for maintaining and growing the brand's strong roots, ensuring the growth of the business, implementing new garden retail concepts and adapting to an ever-growing industry.

Nicola said of her appointment, "Garden centre retail and marketing has been engrained in my ethos since childhood, growing up in a family garden centre business established over 65 years ago across South Wales. With a number of strong Welsh horticultural businesses in an ever-changing retail landscape, I am excited and passionate to be given the opportunity to represent them and gain a better understanding of the challenges we face as an industry. With 2020 being a year like no other I feel it is more important than ever to be committed to support each other and keep communication flowing across the different regions, to enable us to grow and learn together."

helen.cranstone@hta.org.uk