Celebrating 35 years in business, British Garden Centres is dominating the UK market
Celebrating its 35th anniversary in 2025, British Garden Centres is the UK’s largest garden center group by number of sites, with a network of 73 garden centers across the country. From plants, pots, and garden equipment to outdoor furniture and lifestyle ranges, the garden centers in the network have something for everyone, making them an ideal destination for shoppers of all ages.
While the company operates 73 centers today, its heritage is rooted in family values and young entrepreneurship. Founders Charles and Robert Stubbs started off by growing and selling plant cuttings, before opening garden centers in the Lincolnshire area. The acquisition of several stores under the Wyevale Garden Centres brand in 2019 catapulted the business to new heights, and the acquisition activity continued after the pandemic. 
British Garden Centres has remained a family business, with wife Phillippa sitting in a director role and youngest daughter Libby joining the business in the marketing team. Amy Stubbs is the eldest daughter of Charles, and is currently serving as Project and Development Manager and preparing to transition into a role in senior management. We sit down with Amy to learn more about the business and how it has evolved over its 35-year history.
“British Garden Centres started from humble beginnings when my father and uncle started to grow plant cuttings at their family home and sell them to passersby,” Amy opens. “They purchased the first site in Woodthorpe next to their family home, and following its success, they decided to acquire an additional site, Brigg Garden Centre, ten years later, which is our flagship store today.
“The pair continued to acquire stores in the Lincolnshire and Yorkshire areas, and around 2018, when Wyevale Garden Centres looked to sell its sites, we made the decision to take on a proportion of these stores. The Wyevale acquisition was a transformative milestone in our story, taking us from around 15 sites to over 50 almost overnight. We also purchased the sites just before the Covid-19 pandemic hit the UK, so it was a scary time having to close all our stores and not knowing when they’d reopen. Today, with 73 stores in our portfolio, we’re the UK’s largest garden center group by number of sites, and we’re very much looking to carry on this growth trajectory.”
Extensive product portfolio
Indeed, the business is certainly not slowing down, with 11 acquisitions made in 2024 and the first half of 2025 alone. “We’re quite unique in that we’re a central brand across all the garden centers, but we also encourage each site to maintain its individuality,” Amy explains. “While there’s consistency across the stores in terms of branding, pricing, and product selection, every center is slightly different and won’t be identical to another site. The central team decides and purchases product ranges but allows each management team to decide how to merchandise products and how to run their store. It’s a hard balance, but this approach allows us to build brand awareness while empowering our individual site managers to make their mark. Also, we always try to get new and exciting products into newly acquired centers as soon as possible to ensure a positive customer reaction almost instantly.”
Over its 35-year history, British Garden Centres has evolved significantly to meet the new demands of modern gardeners. “While plants remain at the core of what we do, the audience we serve has shifted,” Amy confirms. “When we first started, most of our visitors were seasoned, educated gardeners looking for a specific plant or product, whereas we now get a lot of new gardeners with little plant knowledge visiting us. We’ve changed the way we retail plants to cater to this demand, and we provide much more support and education for the products on offer.
“As shopping habits have evolved, we’ve expanded our product portfolio by adding gift ranges, concessions, and emphasizing Christmas sales. In fact, the Christmas period is now almost as busy as spring, which is excellent because it reduces the seasonality of our garden centers and ensures year-round sales. Our restaurants have also become a key part of each center, with the contributed percentage of sales rising year-on-year. We continue to bring in new products and ranges as we strive to become a shopping destination for not only gardening needs, but also lifestyle and home products.”
Building brand awareness
Building brand awarenessIt’s clear to see Amy’s passion for the family business, and we’re keen to learn more about how her role is changing. “I always had a weekend job helping on the shop floor in our local centers throughout my A-Level studies,” she reflects. “When I finished school, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, and I ended up working for one of our key suppliers, supporting their marketing department. However, around the time of the Wyevale acquisition, all hands on deck were needed at home, so I came back and joined the business in an official capacity. Since then, I’ve worked in a variety of roles from plant buying and growing in the nursery to central and store management roles. I am currently looking after our marketing efforts and supporting central management.
“We’re now at the point of discussing what the future looks like in terms of our leadership, and it seems it would be a natural shift for me to move more into the operations of our portfolio,” Amy adds. “I’m already involved in decision making, and I’m implementing gradual changes to our structure and processes to take the company in the direction it needs. There’s still so much for me to learn, but I’m spending as much time as possible with different teams to gain perspective on all aspects of the business.”
As our conversation ends, talk turns to the future of the business. “We’re in Christmas mode for the rest of this year; all the stock is already purchased but now we’re considering how to execute our plans, especially in our new sites,” Amy concludes. “We’ll continue to develop our existing sites and build a strong team to drive the business forward. It’s difficult to plan ahead in this industry, as we’re not afraid to react to evolving demands and adopt new technologies, but we aim to further grow our brand awareness so that British Garden Centres becomes synonymous with a weekend visit suitable for the whole family.”