As devoted supporters of local community projects, including ‘In Bloom’, since the 1970s, Coolings are excited to be engaging local residents with the joy of gardening and supporting the essence of the competition, which is to help transform areas into better places to live and work, and to make residents, businesses and communities proud of their town.
Thank you to everyone that entered, and a heartfelt congratulations to all the winners. It is always a joy seeing your lovely hard work.
Last night (Tuesday 8th July 2025) Coolings The Gardener’s Garden Centre were honoured to host the Garden Centre Association (GCA) Regional Awards Ceremony. The GCA is a UK organisation that ensures high standards in garden centres, members are inspected every year to ensure they offer great plants, products and friendly advice.
As devoted supporters of local community projects, including ‘In Bloom’, since the 1970s, Coolings are excited to be engaging local residents with the joy of gardening and supporting the essence of the competition, which is to help transform areas into better places to live and work, and to make residents, businesses and communities proud of their town.
Thank you to everyone that entered, and a heartfelt congratulations to all the winners. It is always a joy seeing your lovely hard work.
Top Award and Accolades for Coolings Garden Centres in the 2024 GCA Annual Awards
The UK’s Best Garden Centres were revealed at this year’s GCA Conference. In a prestigious award’s ceremony, held on 29th January, at the Cotswold Water Park, the country’s leading garden centres were in attendance all hoping to win a top accolade.
Coolings Garden Centres had an outstanding evening!
Coolings The Gardener’s Garden Centre in Knockholt, was awarded one of the most prestigious awards, a Garden Centre of Excellence 2023 Award. This award places us within the top 10 out of 200 for all GCA garden centres in the UK.
Not only did we pick up this award, but we are delighted to announce three more massive victories, as finalists in the following categories…
Coolings Managing Director, Dwayne Ross, and members of the team were at the ceremony to receive the accolade.
Dwayne Ross comments, “Winning the Excellence Award and being finalists in a number of other Award categories this evening, is thanks to all the team at Coolings, every single person has put in such hard work in the last year to allow us to get to this level and I’m very proud that these high standards are then seen and felt by our customers, not just at The Gardener’s Garden Centre, but across all 4 of our centres”.
The awards are presented to the centres that the GCA deem to demonstrate immense dedication, hard work and enthusiasm in what they do on a day-to-day basis.
Over the course of a year, the GCA undertake an intensive audit, with no prior notice, recording scores from over 200 garden centres across the UK, so standards have to be maintained throughout the year to win one of these prestigious awards.
As devoted supporters of local community projects, including ‘In Bloom’, since the 1970s, Coolings are excited to be engaging local residents with the joy of gardening and supporting the essence of the competition, which is to help transform areas into better places to live and work, and to make residents, businesses and communities proud of their town.
Thank you to everyone that entered, and a heartfelt congratulations to all the winners. It is always a joy seeing your lovely hard work.
As devoted supporters of local community projects, including ‘In Bloom’, since the 1970s, Coolings are excited to be engaging local residents with the joy of gardening and supporting the essence of the competition, which is to help transform areas into better places to live and work, and to make residents, businesses and communities proud of their town.
Thank you to everyone that entered, and a heartfelt congratulations to all the winners. It is always a joy seeing your lovely hard work.
Team members across our four sites in Kent and East Sussex were delighted to attend and be presented with seven awards at the Garden Centre Association (GCA) South Thames meeting, held at Ruxley Manor in Kent on Thursday 14th July 2022.
As devoted supporters of local community projects, including ‘In Bloom’, since the 1970s, Coolings are excited to be engaging local residents with the joy of gardening and supporting the essence of the competition, which is to help transform areas into better places to live and work, and to make residents, businesses and communities proud of their town.
Thank you to everyone that entered, and a heartfelt congratulations to all the winners. It is always a joy seeing your lovely hard work.
As many of you know, Coolings Nurseries has been committed to the environment since opening in Knockholt in 1913.
We recycle at least 90% of all our on-site waste. Last year, this included 20 tonnes of cardboard and two shipping containers worth of green waste. And plastic plant pots accounted for 14.4 tonnes of the 19 tonnes of plastic the business recycled in 2017.
With one of the largest selections of plants available in the UK, mostly all grown on site, we are doing our best to reduce our carbon footprint. Rainwater is harvested throughout the garden centre, collected in two reservoirs which hold the equivalent of six Olympic-sized swimming pools.
We have introduced biodegradable carrier bags and recyclable taupe pots to replace carbon black ones, and we are trying to get the new pots accepted by Sevenoaks council for domestic recycling. The first in the south east, our plastic pot recycling scheme is set up at on site at Rushmore Hill.
Our on-site restaurant, Arthur’s, uses fruit and veg from our ‘plot to plate’ greenhouse and other local produce.
Environmental awareness is promoted in our community and schools and we have also written our own environmental pledge, sharing goals and achievements with customers and locals.
We aim to encourage sensory planting and schemes which attract insects, birds and other animals.
Marketing manager, Becky Malcolm, said: “We benefit from the support of our customers, who have embraced the schemes, as well as the support of the community. We are aware of the impact our business has on the local infrastructure, particularly traffic, and so all we can to reduce our impact on the village and also support local activities and donate to local causes.”
We are now aiming to become the greenest garden centre in the UK.
Well done all.
We are proud to announce that we won the Commitment to the Environment Award at this year’s Kent Excellence in Business Awards (KEiBA).
As many of you know, Coolings Nurseries has been committed to the environment since opening in Knockholt in 1913. Our goal has always been to minimise our environmental impact, reduce road miles and increase our use of renewable resources.
We are always seeking to innovate; we make use of both traditional and modern technologies in search of environmentally friendly solutions. With one of the largest selections of plants available in the UK, mostly all are grown on site, we are doing our best to reduce our carbon footprint, our team of horticulturists grow quality plants in our own nursery.
We are very conscious of water consumption and conservation and have installed two on-site reservoirs, these hold the equivalent of six Olympic sized swimming pools worth of rainwater (approximately 1.3 million gallons), we installed pumps, pipes, gully’s and guttering on all our buildings, glasshouses and polythene tunnels to collect rainwater and run off from on-site irrigation, this is then pumped back into the reservoirs for reuse.
We also use drip irrigation and sub irrigation extensively, so our plants take up their water requirement through a capillary action, using less water and only the water they need, which creates less dependent, stronger and healthier plants and means the site is less dependent on tap water.
Single use plastic – Coolings, alongside the rest of the horticultural fraternity have been looking at sustainable alternatives to single use plastics in our industry. The black plant pots currently used by garden centres contain carbon black pigment, which hinders recycling processes, therefore local authorities have been unable to recycle these.
In 2018 recyclable taupe pots were introduced, these use a carbon black pigment free polypropylene which solves the issue. We are transferring from our black pots and will complete this move over to these new recyclable pots within 12 months. We are now lobbying our local council to accept the new pots for domestic recycling.
We have also launched the first public plastic pot recycling scheme, placing two large containers for pot collection in the main car park, customers can return all their plastic plant pots and we are aiming
to recycle over 20 tonnes per year.
We aim to lead by example, and recycle over 90% of our on-site waste to ensure the bare minimum is sent to landfill. Last year, this included 20 tonnes of cardboard and two shipping containers worth of green waste. And plastic plant pots accounted for 14.4 tonnes of the 19 tonnes of plastic the business recycled in 2017.
Reducing the ‘carbon footprint’ of our products means we source locally and organically wherever possible. Our retail partners are all expected to operate to the same standards when it comes to environmental impact – we like to work with companies who source responsibly and check for credentials such as Forest Stewardship Council certified wooden furniture, looking for goods that are sustainably produced, reclaimed and re-purposed wherever possible. We even supply the fruit and veg to Arthur’s, using our ‘plot to plate’ greenhouse as well as other local produce.
Environmental awareness, sensory planting and encouraging habitat for wildlife is promoted in our community and schools, and we benefit from the support of our customers, who have embraced the schemes, as well as the support of the community.
So thanks to your contributions we are now aiming to become the greenest garden centre in the UK.
For a birds-eye view of our 14 acre site, production nursery and reservoirs see below…