Published: 20th May 2021
The Garden Society has been a customer of WBC since 2017.
We officially met owner and founders Sam and Aaron back when they booked an appointment to visit the WBC Design Studio & Showroom.
Welcomed by our in house retail consultant, Gerry Moss, their mutual passion for everything design and lifestyle blossomed into what’s been a successful working relationship.
Not just any old garden centre, They are a new breed that entices and excites at every turn ensuring customers flock to them as a lifestyle and leisure destination year-round.
We stopped by to discover how they turned to the BRIX retail modular display system to design both a bar area and a stunning orangery and ultimately changing the way we shop for homes and gardens.
The Background
Southampton based, Garden Society was launched in 2017 when Sam and Aaron were offered the opportunity to develop their own on-site restaurant and take over the whole garden and aquatics centre. Two years later, they had built a new breed of garden centre. Pulling on their creativity and previous experience in hospitality and event planning, the Garden Society soon changed the way we think about the traditional homeware and garden centre model.
It’s a space like no other. With a lifestyle shop featuring stylish homewares and artificial flowers; ‘The Planteria’ with a variety of seasonal outdoor plants, and the ‘Nature Collective’ full of house plants, aquatics and reptiles. And then there’s the restaurant housing three unique spaces. The Palm Room, Orangery Tea House and their outdoor area play host to a stage where unique events take place throughout the year.
If plants weren’t enough, their afternoon tea and seasonal menu attract a plethora of customers across a wide variety of age groups, year-round. It keeps the team busy and always inventing new and exciting spaces and offerings to add.
Goals & Outcomes
Aaron and Sam had a vision for their restaurant & bar area. Not that it wasn’t successful already, they had a vision for this Orangery areas and it was one of grandeur mixed with a contemporary edginess. It brought them to WBC and the BRIX retail modular display system.
Thanks to their incredible vision and creativity, the first set of BRIX units was to create an archway into the Orangery Tea House, suspended overhead then filled with simple and stylish homewares and framed drawings.
It’s a feature that helped to create a room separation, utilising wooden shelves from the BRIX range to upsell products while visitors relax and dine in this stunning environment.
The BRIX Bar
The second set of BRIX has been used to create an attractive industrial bar area. By suspending BRIX building blocks from the ceiling - mix and matching both five-panel wire units with small and large BRIX panels to optimise space and create a frame for the bar that they can sell from and feature best-selling wines.
Used predominantly during summer events, the bar area is situated by the door to the garden dining area, allowing customers to spend their evening amongst nature. A kind of indoor-outdoor vibe.
The Planteria
Amongst seasonal bedding plants, herbs, pots and garden furniture, Sam and Aaron have created spaces to be used for events.
The event spaces play host to gigs by upcoming musicians, yoga sessions and even wedding workshops. All of which create experiences that take the customer out of the traditional garden centre motif, and into an experience-led space that can be transformed into anything by simply removing BRIX and building them up into another space.
It’s passion and a go-to attitude that puts a space like The Garden Society on the map and creates something more than just a garden centre. We’re lucky to have had the opportunity to work with them and look forward to seeing what’s in store for 2021.
Described as a dream for retailers, the BRIX modular display system offers high street stores, pop-ups, market stall holders, and even exhibition designers, a more flexible merchandising solution than previously available on the market.