SUMMER 2014

For more information visit www.mr-fothergills.co.uk

Not only are we showing off all our recently launched products but we will be unveiling two completely new ranges going by the name of Grobox and Gromat. Both are aimed at new, novice and young gardeners. They have bright, fun packaging and are very easy to use. They are a great way to introduce gardening to children and get anyone into the joys of growing! Grobox is a pre-seeded ‘take away pizza’ style box also containing a growing medium. The whole box is simply planted in the ground or a suitable container, covered with a thin layer of soil and watered. Then just watch it grow! As the seed germinates and develops into plants the box bio-degrades in the soil adding organic matter and retaining moisture. There are two children and two adult versions available as counter displays or floor standing displays.

Gromat works on the same easy-to-use premise. Each Gromat pack contains a 2m x 0.48m pre-sown paper mat that is rolled out flat over cleared ground, covered with a thin layer of soil and watered. There are six Gromat variants in the range to choose from including four flower and two vegetable mixes.

On our stand at GLEE we will also be showcasing our Garden Time range of kits / garden gifts - launched this May they just missed the print run of our last newsletter. We’ve teamed up with the makers of the world renowned Buzzy® Garden range to produce a selection of six garden gift sets. These comprise four Windowsill Kits which contain everything you need to grow herbs, strawberries, sunflowers and lavender. There is a Grow Your Own Pesto Kit complete

with pestle and mortar as well as a Grow Your Own Herbs 3-pot kit which consists of a galvanised tray with three pots with compost and seed for basil, parsley and chives.

We look of forward to seeing you at our stand so we can show you these and the rest of our range.

We are delighted with the initial success of our new ranges for the 2015 season that we profiled in the last issue of Seed Matters.

Including:Mr Fothergill’s RSPB seed rangeMr Fothergill’s Pot ToppersMr Fothergill’s Garden Time Kit linesJohnsons’ Garden Designers CollectionsJohnsons’ Micro GreensJohnsons’ Sarah Raven’s Vegetable Seed Collections

If you haven’t yet had chance to find out about them we’ll be showcasing them all at this year’s GLEE show at the Birmingham NEC from 14 to 16 September. We’d love to see you there!

GLEE is a crucial event in the garden retail calendar and we’ve got lots planned for our stand.

For your chance to win a fully stocked Gromat display stand

see page 4GroBox and GroMats launched at GLEE

Scan here for our trade

website

On August 13 we opened up our Kentford head office to the media for our annual press day. This day gives us chance to talk to the press about all our new products and our plans for the future whilst showing off all the hard work that goes on on our trials ground.

Highlights of the day included the naming of our new sweet pea (more on this below!); the presentation of the Mr Fothergill’s award for the best Capel Manor College

horticulture student; the attendance of Geoff Brown, a guest speaker from the RSPB, to support the launch of our new RSPB seed range; and a visit from two residents of the Royal Hospital Chelsea and Kate Marsh, the hospital’s fundraising manager.

It was a great success with other 40 guests touring our trial site and we received a lot of positive feedback about our new varieties and trials work.

What the papers say

Creative containers

New iconic sweet pea to honour British iconsEarlier this year, husband and wife actors and keen gardeners, Jim Carter and Imelda Staunton OBE, became patrons of Greenfingers – a charity which creates gardens in children’s hospices.

To honour the work of the much-loved stars of theatre, TV and film (both on screen and in the garden) we are naming our new Spencer variety of sweet pea after them with our “Jimelda”.

The couple have a glittering past and Jim Carter is most recently known for his role in Downton Abbey as Mr Carson the butler. His wife, Imelda Staunton, starred in the Harry Potter film series as Professor Dolores Jane Umbridge; she also received an OBE in 2006 for her services to drama.

The Jimelda sweet pea will only be available through mail order for the 2015 season from September. It will then feature in the Mr Fothergill’s retail range from 2016. A packet of 20 seeds will cost £2.45; 25p of which will be donated to the Greenfingers charity.

Jim Carter said: “We are delighted and honoured to have a sweet pea - our favourite flower - named after us! Because we prefer to garden together, it seemed only natural we should pick a name that was a combination of our own - hence ‘Jimelda’.

“We’d like to thank Mr Fothergill’s for donating part of the cost of a packet of Jimelda to Greenfingers; this extremely generous support by Mr Fothergill’s will help make a big difference to children’s lives. Please buy several packets for yourselves and more for your friends. It’s for a good cause.”

Our recent press day gave us chance to show off our staff’s design skills. We set the Mr Fothergill’s team the challenge of creating entries for a containers contest which visitors judged on the press day. The standard of all 12 entries varied quite considerably, but in the end it was decided that Carol from our seed lab and trial ground was the winner with her pink and blue planters. Pim from our commercial department was awarded second place with his brazier planter and third place was won by a two woman team of Sally and Debbie from our reception and HR respectively. Among the more quirky entries was a bra hanging basket - good to see underwear recycling in full swing!!

Seed Cubes receive further recognitionWe’ve been delighted with the success of our Seed Cubes. Not only was it recognised by the RHS and shortlisted for the product of the year at the Chelsea Flower Show but also it has since been selected to go into the stunning Volkswagen Autostadt complex in Wolfsburg, Germany.

The consultant that sources products for the VW complex shop, which is dedicated to showcasing fine design products, saw the Cubes at RHS Chelsea Flower Show and fell in love with them. The result is Seed Cubes now being sold alongside leaders in creativity, style and invention

Residents of the Royal Hospital Chelsea explore our trials grounds

Peter Seabrook MBE with our new ‘Jimelda’ sweet pea

Stuart Clemence

For more information visit www.mr-fothergills.co.uk

What the papers say

A Mr Fothergill’s employee has raised over £1,000 for the Multiple Scleroses Society by walking across 20ft of hot coals which had a staggering temperature of over 1200°F!

Ben Roden was one of 19 people, including Ipswich MP Ben Gummer, who took part in the Firewalk Challenge in Ipswich. In total over £8,000 was raised for the MS Society.

Ben, 27 who was diagnosed with the condition in 2010, commented: “It was really good! I’d love to do it again. The Firewalk was one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences. It was a challenging, but rewarding experience! Knowing I was doing it for such a worthwhile charity kept me going. Thank you to everyone who sponsored me”.

Ben’s generous colleagues at Mr Fothergill’s contributed more than £750 of his £1,000 total.

Walking on hot coals

Sales Person of the YearIt’s time for us to announce the winner of annual Sales Person of the Year!

This year the award goes to Stuart Clemence, our area sales manager for the south east of England. Stuart managed to beat off stiff competition from Larry White who had been hoping for a SPOTY hat trick this year having won in both 2012 and 2013.

Kevin Sullivan came second with Larry taking third place. The SPOTY award is judged on a range of criteria, not just the total amount sold. Turnover in their sales area is one aspect considered but other factors include

percentage growth; number of new customers gained; percentage of existing customers maintained; and the standard of administration.

Our winner Stuart achieved a clean sweep of awards this year by also claiming lawn seed sales person of the year.

One of the most popular sections on our Mr-Fothergills.co.uk website is our blog. Back in April we were delighted to welcome award-winning gardening writer, Graham Rice, as our new regular guest blogger.

Keep up to date with Graham’s “Plant Talk” blog by reading his informative opinions and recommendations. The blog is published

every Friday and covers a wide range of plants including hardy annuals, award winning shrubs, pansies, foxgloves and pennine chrysanths to mention just a few…

Graham’s isn’t the only blog on our website. Go online for the latest updates from our Nation of Gardeners; read the online blog for developments on their progress and see photos of their key growing highlights so far.

Plant Talk with Graham Rice

Sweet Pea successesCongratulations to all the winners of our Sweet Pea competition that we ran in conjunction with Capel Manor College. The competition, aimed at domestic gardeners, attracted entries from as far afield as Ross-shire, Co Tyrone and Cornwall.

A bunch of ten sweet pea stems were valued at £50 each in the national competition held at Capel Manor College in north London on Saturday, 5 July 2014. Keith Thompson of Guilden Morden, Hertfordshire secured the £500 first prize having grown 18 varieties of sweet pea in his garden.

Keith puts his success down to the incorporation of plenty of farmyard manure into his soil and the addition of blood meal, fish and bone fertiliser just prior to setting out his young plants. After which he waters them regularly, but does not feed them again.

We also awarded £500 for the best postal entry which was won by Margaret Smith of Burton on Trent, Staffordshire.

There were similar on-the-day and postal categories for schools, which were won by the Priory Junior School in Chelmsford and the All Saints Primary School in Derbyshire respectively. Each received £500.

The competition judges were our very own John Fothergill, esteemed gardening writer Peter Seabrook MBE and principal of Capel Manor College, Stephen Dowbiggin OBE.

The competition also proved popular with our Nation of Gardeners who were very keen to submit the sweet peas that they received in their October and April parcels. Whilst the timing of the competition didn’t work out for some of the gardeners, others were successful and Joan from Cumbria and Mags from Renfrewshire managed to submit their sweet peas in full bloom. Our Nation of Gardeners representative from Hemel Hempstead, 15 year old Max, was awarded 2nd prize for his postal entry and Georgina from Cheshire came third.

Ben Roden from Mr Fothergill’s with Ipswich MP, Ben Gummer

Max Secunda, from our Nation of Gardeners, with his certificate for coming second

Keith Thompson with his prize-winning sweet peas

GROWING BRANDS FOR YOUR BUSINESS

General Enquiries: 01638 751161

Fax: 01638 554085

Email: sales@mr-fothergills.co.uk

www.mr-fothergills-trade.com www.johnsons-trade.comMr Fothergill’s Seeds Ltd, Gazeley Road, Kentford, Newmarket, Suffolk CB8 7QB

To mark the centenary of the First World War, in January this year we launched our Victoria Cross Poppy from which we pledged 25p from every packet sold to the Royal Hospital Chelsea. It proved to be incredibly popular and soon became our largest selling variety. In August we were delighted to present the Royal Hospital with a cheque for a staggering £24,462.50 – far more than we ever anticipated!

We also recently visited the Bumblebee Conservation Trust to present them with the £3,288 raised from sales of the Johnsons Bumblebee Friendly Flower Mix.

Thank you for all your help in selling these charity ranges, the proceeds really will make a difference.

Charity sales exceed expectations

In the last issue of Seed Matters we gave away a fully stocked display of our new RSPB seed range. The winner was Lawsons of Tavistock. Congratulations! Your prize will be on its way to you soon.

For this issue’s competition we are giving away a Gromat display. For your chance to win answer the following simple question:

Who have we partnered up with to product our new Garden Time gift range?

Email your answer to sm@mr-fothergills.co.uk by 1st October

It’s competition time!

It’s been great to get out on the road and see so many people this summer. Whilst meeting our customers we’ve been able to reinforce the Mr Fothergill’s brand having attended Chelsea, Hampton Court and Tatton RHS flower shows – which collectively drew in crowds of approximately 375,000 people! That’s a lot of potential customers!

Out and About