On Wednesday, 20th July, Perrywood Garden Centres won the majority of awards at the Garden Centre Association (GCA) North Thames Regional Awards and walked away with both top accolades.
Perrywood Tiptree was named Best Destination Garden Centre in the region for the sixth consecutive time. Perrywood Sudbury picked up the title Garden Centre of the Year for the first time, after coming 2nd in 2021. Destination Garden Centres have a turnover of £4m or more, whilst Garden Centres have a turnover of less than £4m.
Tiptree received six awards:
- Destination Garden Centre of the Year for the sixth time
- The Customer Service Award
- Best Indoor Lifestyle Retailer (Destination Garden Centre category)
- The GIMA Award – Best Garden Products Retailer (Destination Garden Centre category)
- Barton Grange Trophy – Commercial Innovation & Creativity (Destination Garden Centre category)
- The Environment and Sustainability Award
- National Finalist in The Ruxley Rose Competition for Best Plant Area
Sudbury received four awards:
- Garden Centre of the Year
- Best Indoor Lifestyle Retailer (Garden Centre category)
- The GIMA Award – Best Garden Products Retailer (Garden Centre category)
- The Outdoor Living Award (Garden Centre category)
- National Finalist in The Ruxley Rose Competition for Best Plant Area
Simon Bourne, Retail Director at Perrywood, comments, “We are all on cloud nine today! For Perrywood Tiptree to keep coming top takes a lot of hard work and creativity every year. September will see Perrywood Sudbury celebrating its fourth birthday. To be named the best Garden Centre in the region in such a short time is a great reward for the investment and effort we have put into making it a brilliant place to work and shop.”
Members of the GCA in the North Thames region were given an unannounced inspection between March and June. Inspectors scored them across various criteria, from toilets and tills to sustainability and staffing. The awards are given to those achieving the highest scores.
Perrywood Tiptree and Sudbury were also announced as finalists for the Ruxley Rose Competition, which means they have one of the top ten scoring plant areas within Destination Garden Centres (Tiptree) and Garden Centres (Sudbury) in the UK. They will be inspected again in September. Joint scores from Spring & Autumn will be used to decide the overall winners, announced in January 2023.
