Earlier this month Tina and Sophie from our Berwick branch and Sarah from our Plantsplus branch headed to off to visit our charity of the year, the Great North Air Ambulance Service, at their Stockton-on-Tees base.

During their visit the ladies had a tour of the base, got some great fundraising tips and even had a shot sitting in one of the helicopters!

The GNAAS are an invaluable charity for our area, rescuing hundreds of critically ill and injured patients throughout the year. In 2024, their annual cost of the service was £9.3 million. Yet, they receive no government funding and rely solely on the generosity of the public and local businesses.

This is the second year that the staff at Plantsplus Garden Centre have chosen the GNAAS to be their charity of the year. Last year, they raised a fantastic £2,267.94. And we have so much more planned already this coming year.

Keep an eye on our events and how you can support an amazing local charity. Let’s all work together to raise some invaluable funds for a fantastic cause.

If you would like to donate directly to the Great North Air Ambulance Service, please head to their website – https://www.greatnorthairambulance.co.uk/

Each year our staff at each garden centre have the hard task of choosing our ‘charity of the year’. By choosing one charity per garden centre to focus on, it allows up to pour all of our time, effort and resources to making a big impact.

Throughout the year, each team works hard to come up with innovative ways to raise funds. Raffles, auctions, wishing trees and even rounders matches have been a few of the ways we have raised money so far!

Great North Air Ambulance

Both teams at Berwick and Plantsplus Garden Centre voted to make the Great North Air Ambulance for their chosen charity.

GNAA are an invaluable service to our area. They receive no government funding and rely solely on the generosity of the public.

We have lots planned this coming year, to hopefully raise a large amount of money.

To read more about GNAA, click here.

RNLI – Royal National Lifeboat Institution – Dunbar Branch

Lifeboats have been launching from Dunbar for over 200 years now. The award-winning crew have saved countless lives during this time.

Due to Dunbar being situated right on the coast, this is an essential service to the area.

As you can image, launching and keeping lifeboats can be quite costly – we’re hoping to raise lots of money this year to help support this invaluable charity.

To read more about the RNLI and their work, click here.

Dear Customers,

For 40 years, Berwick Garden Centre has been a part of my life. I have the fondest memories of the times my sister, Kristina, and I used to go into Berwick and do, what we thought was help at the time; we swept up at the end of a day with a broom bigger than both of us put together; we sorted out the huge baskets of loose bulbs into hopefully the correct containers; we arranged wondrous plants on pallets and after some years even got to serve and clear tables in the Suntrap Café.

I have been lucky enough to witness the huge progression made over the years: the company’s continuous growth, the expansion projects, the construction and launch of Dunbar Garden Centre in March 2013 and the development and opening of Plantsplus in 2016 and the general realisation of many of my father’s incredible ideas; time and time again.

This autumn I have had the great pleasure to join this fantastic group of Garden Centres as Managing Director. The opportunity to meet and begin to get to know all of our hard-working and enthusiastic employees has been an absolute delight. This initiation has involved getting to grips with the ins-and-outs of daily routines, the behind-the-scene processes and necessary decisions to ensure that each centre is able to offer the most pleasurable and enjoyable experience for our diverse and loyal customers.  Working together with the already established and brilliant management team has already brought me a lot of sense of fulfilment and fun and has opened my eyes to the buzz of managing garden centres.

In this environment, the excitement and ideas never cease! My father, Nick Crabbie, has always looked ahead and it is a joy to be able to work together with him to discover and realise whatever is next, whilst continuously working to improve each centre and sticking to our core values.  I feel very privileged to become a part of this independent, family owned business and I can’t wait to get to know more of you, your ideas and needs and to continue our journey together. The welcome I have received has been hugely encouraging and I believe is a reflection of the great work Nick has put in over the years.

We are proud to launch our new logo and group name, “Crabbies’ Family of Garden Centres”, reflecting the greater involvement from the next generation of Crabbies’ and the ethos of our Centres: we are one team, with each centre maintaining its individuality to serve our customers best in the region they live.

With guidance, I hope to continue the success of the group and enjoy this exciting journey.  I have some big boots to fill, but I’ll be sure to do my best for our staff and for you, our customers.

I look forward to seeing you in our shops soon,

All the best,  

Fiona Crabbie Kherian

2024 saw the launch of our new children’s gardening club; Budding Botanists. An educational and fun way to introduce the next generation to the wonderful world of gardening.

We have already made our own bug hotels, bird feeders, planted sunflowers and even made our own mini gardens – yes, we have been busy!

A strong theme in these workshops are to keep the materials that we use as sustainable and environmentally friendly as possible, and also teaching the children why it’s important that we take these steps, to protect the world as we know it.

These sessions run four times through the year, keep an eye on our events page to book on our next session.