Are you just a garden centre?
Nope……truth is, we’re a bit bonkers about global plastic use and since 2017, we’re doing our bit…….
In 2017 we began the intrepid journey to perhaps one day being entirely plastic free across the whole site. Although this feeling was out there in the zeitgeist, we were, as always, ahead of the curve in terms of garden centres and the big gun garden centres and their ‘more traditional’ conventions.
We began by reducing our growing pots and their provenance, taking advice and sourcing the very best compostable and recycled ones that we could, with the help of Andrew and the fantastic team at BHGS, Hayle, Cornwall…….however, we knew we needed to do more……
We started removing the pots at checkout and using a fully compostable bag to replace them. Tied neatly and made of thistle starch, the bag can be planted with the plant or simply discarded into your regular compost stream. It has been a huge success, only interrupted by the pandemic, which did not allow us to touch or handle customer goods.
What to do with the pots??
Working closely with the nationally recognised and awarded local Beach Guardian, we held a Pot Amnesty alongside the fantastic team at Exeter City Council and the Ocean Recovery Project. We organised a skip and a team to unload and sort, and together with our customers, we took a tonne and half of garden plastics from the local area in just under 14 hours. The Ocean Recovery Project then took the pots and turned them into everything from ocean going kayaks especially developed and designed to collect discarded ocean plastics whilst in use, garden furniture and even a bespoke stage at Glastonbury!
We have since extended this offer to manage a fulltime pot receiving skip on site with the help of Exeter City Council and the Ocean Recovery Project, collecting our pots and also any rigid garden plastics, to save even more from landfill.
Our plastic free crusade continues, looking at everything we have here, our waste streams, retail packaging, our hospitality area, you name it…..it’s on our hit list!
“It all begins with an idea. the idea to be better and strive to make a difference in your place on the planet.Think positively, work with amazing people, follow your heart. It’s simple really”
— Sian Sandry, passionate wife, mother, business owner and planet lover.
Beach Guardian
Surrounded by the exquisite 7 bays of North Cornwall, and waging our own war on plastic waste, it was an easy leap to form an alliance with the Beach Guardian team, tackling ocean waste and plastic pollution. We offered them a home here at Trevisker so that we could secure the widest possible reach for our customers to understand the problem on our coastline and of course, learn from them ourselves. We, and our customers have been regular beach cleaners since 2018, walking the walk and talking the talk. Mark even took part in a well-documented 24 hour beach clean along a 7 mile stretch of the coast.
Our relationship with Beach Guardian means we even have a famous resident whale here now!
A project using the ocean and beach waste, collected from the 7 bays around us, was used in a Netflix series, the Great Garden Flower Fight. This saw artists and designers collaborate to make art from waste. The winners of the series saw their Waste Whale art displayed in Kew Gardens before proudly donating him to us to display at Trevisker. The culmination of which was the artists in residence here at Trevisker welcoming local school children to get involved with reimagining Cetus the Whale as an educational tool, filming a documentary about making him and his journey from the sea.
“I was born above this beach, I collected sea shells and fresh mussels here with my granny as a boy. It makes sense then, to return here with my wife and daughter and the great Beach Guardian and look after the place that we love. We can all do our bit where we are”
Mark Sandry, proud Cornish boy, husband, father, plant and planet lover.
Proud to be Peat Free here since 2018….
Did you know……the global collection of peat bogs collectively capture more carbon than all the worlds oceans put together!
The news is flooded with promises of businesses wanting to go peat free, in pursuit of saving our precious peat bogs.
Truth is we couldn't possible profess to be planet loving and nature nurturing if we didn’t look inwards to our industry first. In a world where we have blatantly forced peat perfection on gardens for many decades, now is the time for change…. and we’re making it.
We’ve been proudly growing peat free since 2018, passing on the results of our testing and research to our customers in 2019 by going completely peat free in all our compost sales.
Working closely with our wonderful suppliers Melcourt Industries we are happy to offer peat free in our recycled bags, our wonderful refill service.
Come and join the refill revolution………
Chemical free at a garden centre…….surely not?!
The well documented chemical backlash lead us to believe there was a better way, but that without our help to educate, we could not preach to know better. In 2020 we made the decision to go chemical free, we began our own chemical free fertiliser refill service, grab a bottle, fill up, return with your bottle…… and to huge success, we knew we were really onto something.
It was easy then to go chemical free of weedkillers and the bug hating nasty chemicals we can ALL live without. It will always be a process of educating the more traditional customer, but with our help and support, they have been so supportive of our mission and are coming along for the ride.
Our refill fertiliser store
“If the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live.”
-Maurice Maeterlinck, The Life of the Bee.
“Our hearts lead us in the pursuit of a better place for our children and the future. We make our story here at Trevisker, lead by passion and people. We hope you’ll join us”
Mark and Sian Sandry, planet loving business owners.
