A garden centre which was saved from uncertainty last year, when family-run Perrywood Garden Centre bought the business to expand its portfolio, is celebrating its first anniversary.

Now known as Perrywood Sudbury, the site on Newton Road in Sudbury, Suffolk, was bought from Wyevale by the directors of Essex-based Perrywood Garden Centre, and had its first day of trading on September 25, 2018. In just one year it has benefitted from significant changes and investment.

Since Perrywood took over the centre, the company has created 13 more jobs, and increased contractual hours for nine of the ex-Wyevale team. The site now employees 34 people in total.

Working hard to turn the fortunes of the centre around over the past year, the team has focused on improving the offering and bringing a ‘Perrywood feel’ to the store introducing how-to leaflets, moving houseplants to the front of the store, and bringing in more stock, including new ranges of bird care, gloves, tools, pots, and indoor and outdoor plants  -including plants from the Perrywood Grown range.

The company has also invested more than £100,000 in a new kitchen and coffee shop; reopening it as a destination for customers looking for home-cooked breakfasts, soup, hot lunches freshly made sandwiches, cakes and of course Perrywood’s famous scones.

To help celebrate its first birthday, staff will be hosting a week of in-store promotions and social media competitions.

Perrywood retail director Simon Bourne said: “We are absolutely delighted to be celebrating our first year in Sudbury. The community has been so welcoming to us and has really supported us since we took over. We have some regular and very loyal customers so we hope to see as many as possible in store to help us celebrate.

“The high street is not an easy environment for retailers at the moment but we believe our fabulous, hardworking and knowledgeable staff, high quality plants and inspiring visual merchandising, have helped us buck the trend.”

Perrywood has more than 30 years’ experience running its award-winning Tiptree garden centre, which comprises of a plant production nursery, gift and home shop and 260-seater coffee shop and restaurant. As a £10million turnover business, the company employs 164 staff and is ranked at number three in the Garden Centre Association (GCA) league table of UK garden centres.