About Us

The Gardman Story

Appropriately for a company dedicated to bringing gardens to life, our story’s main theme is spectacular growth.

Founded in 1992 Paris Natar, the company had gone from zero to sales of £1.4 million by the end of its first financial year.

In 1998 we appeared on the Virgin/Sunday Times ‘Fast Track’ of the UK’s thousand fastest growing privately owned companies. No wonder, sales had risen to £6.8 million by 1997.

Growth since then has been meteoric, with a current turnover of more than £70 million. Along the way, in 2004 we reached 32nd place in the Sunday Times PricewaterhouseCoopers Profit Track 100.

In December 2007 Barclays Private Equity, the pan-European mid-market private equity house, acquired a major stake in Gardman.

Innovation, innovation, innovation

We are generally recognised as the most active developer of new products in the UK garden products market, adding at least 200 lines to our range every single year since 2002. We now supply over 4000 lines and are the UK’s leading supplier of Garden Sundries and Wild Bird Care products.

A word on birds

Having established domination of the garden sundries market, we decided to develop our wild bird care range – and look how that took off! We are now undisputed brand leader in a market worth £180 million.

The British Trust for Ornithology range was launched in 2006 and our full range now boasts over 400 products checked and endorsed by the BTO. We dominate by creating and marketing products that appeal to bird lovers and give retailers superior cash margins.

Logistic statistics

Our head office and Wild Bird Care facility has been in Moulton, Lincolnshire since 2001. We set up our Kings Lynn warehouse in the same year, and opened our Peterborough showroom in 2007.

With a total warehouse capacity of over 880,000 sq ft we have £60 million worth of stock ready to be delivered at any given time. Our goal is to dispatch 97% of all orders on time every time. This may help to explain why our garden centre customers have voted us Supplier of the Year eight times.

Export and international growth

Gardman USA was established in Atlanta in 1999 and has flourished ever since. We now export to over 35 countries throughout the world, with international sales accounting for 16% of group turnover.

Size isn’t everything however, and we are particularly proud of our links with Stanley Growers, the only garden centre in the Falkland Islands.

Australia is our latest market to be opened up. Gardman (Australia) Pty is a 50:50 joint venture with Brunnings Garden Products, established in 2007.