In this special series, HortWeek columnist and garden industry consultant Neville Stein brings his Whatever Happened To... feature to the HortWeek podcast, exploring the stories and legacies of once-great horticulture businesses.
In this episode Stein speaks to Richard Burt, sales director at Provender Nurseries, to take a deep dive into the precipitous rise, and ultimate demise of Coblands Nursery, once a towering presence in the UK amenity plant market.
Coblands was a colossal operation with a massive geographical footprint stretching from Sevenoaks down to Tunbridge Wells and beyond, comprising a 20-acre cash-and-carry site and expansive nursery operations.
The nursery capitalised on the golf course development boom, specializing in high-volume, low-value stock focused on trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants. They supplied landscape projects, including Leeds Castle and the Crystal Palace dinosaur park.
Burt joined Coblands as a student from Cannington College in 1993 and remained until 2007, finishing cash and carry manager. He describes a vibrant, youthful work culture that operated like a close-knit family business, where staff worked hard and socialised just as intensely.
Stein and Burt discuss the numerous innovations, driven by frugality, brought about under the direction of the late Geoff Turner.
The operational DNA of Coblands lives on at Provender Nurseries. Burt, along with around half a dozen former Coblands staff, transported and refined the Coblands cash-and-carry model.
With this continuity in mind, the pair discuss lessons learned, what has changed in horticulture business since Coblands' hayday, and how some things, good and bad, remain the same.
To find out more about this fascinating history, read Neville Stein's original article: Whatever Happened to... Coblands.
Find dozens more horticulture business histories from the Whatever happened to... series HERE
Podcast presenter: Neville Stein
Podcast producer: Christina Taylor
If you enjoyed this podcast do check out our huge archive of HortWeek Podcast interviews with an unrivalled selection of prominent and fascinating figures from all corners of the horticulture sector.
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