The Underground

At a time when so much marketing is measured in clicks, what can a physical magazine still offer garden centres, suppliers and their customers?
In this episode of The Underground, Phil and Kate are joined by Nick Trachillis, director of The Garden Centre Magazine.
Nick explains how the business creates bespoke magazines for garden centres across the UK, free to both the centre and its customers and funded by national and local advertisers. They discuss the importance of useful editorial content, how to balance the needs of readers and advertisers, and why a magazine taken home can continue working long after a customer has left the garden centre.
The conversation also covers the challenge of measuring print advertising, the value of loyal local audiences, the role of cafés and restaurants in increasing dwell time, and how print and digital can work alongside each other.
Nick also shares the family story behind the business, its long-standing support for Greenfingers Charity, and his belief in natural growth, strong relationships and creating a workplace people genuinely enjoy being part of.
A warm and practical conversation for garden centre owners, suppliers, marketers and anyone interested in customer communication across the garden retail sector.

We're back for a brand new season of The Underground Podcast!In our first episode, Phil and Kate are joined by Dr Ana Attlee, co-founder of Seedball, to talk about wildflowers, pollinators, biodiversity and the role garden centres can play in helping people make more wildlife-friendly choices.Seedball was created to make growing wildflowers from seed as simple as possible. Ana shares how Seedball grew from academic research and a passion for conservation into a mission-led garden product stocked by retailers including garden centres. The conversation explores the loss of wildflower meadows, the importance of bees and other pollinators, why wildlife gardening needs to feel hopeful rather than overwhelming, and how small spaces can still make a real difference.Phil and Kate also talk to Ana about working with organisations such as Kew Gardens, and why garden centres are so important in normalising wildlife-friendly gardening for every generation.A hopeful, practical and inspiring conversation about native wildflowers, biodiversity, sustainable gardening and the power of making environmental action feel achievable.Find out more about Seedball: https://seedball.co.uk/Your hosts:Phil Wright: ⁠http://wrightobara.com⁠Kate Turner: ⁠http://www.gardenerguru.co.uk

What’s the one change you’d most like to see in garden retail over the next five years? At Glee 2025, we put that question to all 20 of our guests who joined us in The Underground podcast booth – from garden centre owners and suppliers to marketeers, educators and innovators. The result is a sharp, hopeful snapshot of where the garden sector wants to head next. 
In this compilation episode you’ll hear from voices including:
Amy and Libby Stubbs (British Garden Centres), Kate Ebbens (Woodlodge), Michael Perry (Mr Plant Geek), Boyd Douglas-Davies, Peter Burks (GCA), Nigel Thompson (Sipcam Home and Garden), Helen Thomas and Simon Taylor (Empathy), Steve Harper (Grass Gains & Responsible Sourcing Scheme), Vanessa Cranford (Spring Marketing), Aaron Rudman-Hawkins (The Evergreen Agency), Barry Knight (The Full Range), Kaz Edwards (Heart of Eden) Dan Durston and Simon Blackhurst (Durstons), Nat Boynton and Meg Warren-Davis (YPHA), Tony Kersey (GIMA), Paul Oliver (the Urban Nature Store) Rev Dave Walker (Birleymoor Garden Centre), Belle Richardson (Seal Stop) and Paul Pleydell (Pleydell Smithyman). 
Themes that keep coming up:
Attracting younger and more diverse customers into garden centres and horticulture. 

Better education and funded training for new entrants and shop-floor teams. 

Peat-free growing media, soil health and biofertilisers becoming the norm. 

Smarter use of digital, AI and ecommerce to support modern customer journeys. 

Stronger sustainability standards, water-saving innovation and support for independents at the heart of local communities. 

If you’re a garden retailer, supplier or brand marketer, this is a 360-degree view of the sector’s hopes, frustrations and priorities as we look towards 2030.

⁠Discover more about our hosts:Kate Turner: ⁠www.gardenerguru.co.uk⁠Phil Wright: ⁠www.wrightobara.com

The science of plant nutrition is moving fast, and it is reshaping everything from peat-free compost to profit margins on the shop floor. In this Glee 2025 special, Phil and Kate sit down with Steve Harper, MD of Grass Gains and Chair of the Responsible Sourcing Scheme, and then with Simon Taylor and Helen Thomas from Empathy, Plantworks, to explore what comes next for lawn care, plant feeds and bio-fertilisers in garden retail. 
Steve explains how Grass Gains is bringing professional-grade lawn products and a new peat-free specific plant food, Bloom, into the consumer market, why excess potassium is sabotaging plant performance in peat-free, and how challenger brands can use social media and TikTok lives to build demand and push back against “blocked out” categories on the shelves. 
Simon and Helen then lift the lid on Empathy’s latest bio-fertilisers and plant-specific feeds, from RootGrow to the new Green Room houseplant range, all designed with soil biology and peat-free compost in mind. They share how mycorrhizal fungi and beneficial bacteria are moving from agriculture into home gardening, how their virtual advice assistant Emily uses AI to support staff and consumers, and why clever attachment selling on the till can meaningfully lift basket spend without cannibalising other lines. 
In this episode, we cover:
Why soil health, not just NPK, is the real foundation of resilient plants in a peat-free world

How Grass Gains is positioning as a challenger brand through product quality, format and social media, rather than big-budget advertising

The peat-free transition: where the Responsible Sourcing Scheme is now, and what a new quality mark could mean for retailers and consumers

The rise of bio-fertilisers: mycorrhizal fungi, beneficial bacteria and what they can do for garden centre customers

Empathy’s new product development, packaging and in-store attachment strategies that increase average basket value

How AI advice tools like Emily can support, not replace, expert staff on the shop floor 

If you work in the garden sector and want to understand where plant nutrition, soil health and attachment selling are heading next, this episode is for you. Subscribe to The Underground and visit theunderground.fm to get new episodes and sector insights straight to your inbox.

Marketing for garden centres is changing fast. In this Glee 2025 episode of The Underground, Phil Wright and Kate Turner sit down with two specialists to explore how loyalty data and paid media can work together to drive footfall, sales and long-term customer value in the home and garden sector.

First up, Vanessa Cranford from Spring Marketing explains why garden centre loyalty schemes should be treated as profit engines, not cost centres. Drawing on two decades of experience and data from over 100 UK sites, she shows how EPOS-linked loyalty programmes can lift average transaction value by around 50%, increase visit frequency and turn your best customers into brand advocates, all while giving you clearer visibility of churn and customer lifetime value.

Then, Aaron Rudman-Hawkins from The Evergreen Agency joins Phil to demystify paid search and paid social for home and garden brands. He breaks down when ads work (and when they don’t), why average order value and lifetime value matter so much, and how to think about budgets by working backwards from revenue goals . He also shares how localised search and smart retargeting can help garden centres “win the postcode and win the weekend”.

In this episode you’ll learn:
Why loyalty should sit at the heart of your marketing communications, not off to one side
How EPOS-integrated loyalty schemes reveal who your high-value “protect at all cost” customers really are
Practical examples of using purchase data to upsell, cross-sell and drive repeat visits (from roses to hot drink cards)
Common myths about older customers and apps, and how to get teams excited about scanning cards and using data
The difference between search and social, and how to use both to capture intent and nudge customers back in-store
Why lower-ticket products can struggle with ads, and how repeat purchase or premium ranges can change the equation
Whether you’re running a single site or a multi-centre group, this episode is packed with practical, data-driven ideas to modernise your marketing, make better use of the customers you already have, and turn “just another loyalty card” into a real competitive advantage.

Spring Marketing: http://springmarketing.co.uk/
The Evergreen Agency: http://theevergreenagency.co.uk/