Grosvenor will be helping visitors to enjoy a taste of ‘the good life’ this weekend, Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th March, from 11am until 3pm, with expert advice, demonstrations and a mini farmyard too.

As part of its ongoing initiative to inform and advise visitors how easy it is to create or improve their own Edible Garden for a bountiful supply of fresh fruit and vegetables all year round, Grosvenor will be offering beginners and more advanced gardeners the chance to learn from the experts with tips and visual demonstrations in their own Edible Garden.

Grosvenor will also be helping visitors sign up to the One Pot Pledge encouraging children and visitors to the garden centre to get growing.  A national scheme in conjunction with Garden Organic, a charity in support of organic growing, the One Pot Pledge encourages everyone to get growing even with just ‘one pot’.

Visitors wishing to learn more about rearing their own animals and the importance of their impact on the countryside can see and stroke goats, guinea pigs, lambs, pigs and rabbits in Grosvenor’s visiting farmyard.  And spinning wheel demonstrations will be taking place showing the journey from fleece to wool, and there will be a fun fruit and veg quiz too with a free packet of seeds for every entrant.

On Sunday 20th March, the ‘100 Day Waste Challenge Roadshow’ will be at Grosvenor, offering hints and tips on reducing household waste through recycling, composting and raising awareness of how even the smallest actions can have a big impact.

“Here at Grosvenor, we are passionate about encouraging everyone to make the most of their gardens and to use even the smallest area to create a ready supply of the most nutritious fresh fruit and vegetables available.  Our Good Life weekend will provide the perfect opportunity for anyone interested in giving it a go to learn all they can and plenty more about enjoying self sufficient lifestyle,” commented Claire Binns, Events Co-ordinator, Grosvenor.

Grosvenor’s Apple Weekend has been a great success as visitors embraced the British apple and joined Grosvenor, local villages and schools, Eaton Estate and The Chester Grosvenor and Spa to enjoy the entertaining and informative event.

A village Masterchef competition saw Christine Emerson from Aldford, Chris Talbot from Eccleston and Rachel Gunnery from Saighton compete against each other for the coveted title and a winner’s hamper.  The lucky winner was Christine from Aldford with her starter course of filo baskets with brie, caramelised apple and onion with apple crisps and roasted clove of garlic. 

Rachel from Saighton had the hard task of completing a complicated recipe within the allotted time slot of one hour with pork sausages in honey, mustard and apple with potatoes, leeks, broccoli, apples and walnuts topped with a cheese sauce and coated with breadcrumbs.  And finally, Chris from Eccleston completed the three course meal with two fruit pies – one made using Bramley apples and the second with the addition of fresh blackberries.   Simon Radley, Michelin starred Chef from The Chester Grosvenor and Spa judged the competition alongside Scott Whitelam, Café Manager at the garden centre.

“It was a very difficult decision as all courses were equally tasty but the delicious caramelised apples on Christine’s filo baskets were particularly inspired,” said Simon Radley.

Head Gardener of Eaton Estate, Les Armstrong, proved a popular draw to the garden centre as he offered advice on growing apple trees and was able to identify unknown varieties of apples already growing in local gardens.

“I have been completely taken aback by the number of visitors requesting my advice and it has been a joy to see a few varieties of apples that I have never seen before.  I will be researching any left unidentified and contacting everybody with my findings over the coming days,” said Les.

Visitors were invited to try their hand at apple pressing using a traditional press, and took part in a longest apple peel competition with the winning peel measuring an amazing 429cm!  The winner was delighted to win a £50 garden centre voucher.

And there were prizes for the younger visitor too with a ‘Find Annie Apple’ competition and any child who visited the garden centre in apple fancy dress received a Grosvenor chocolate bar.

With nature activities, storytelling and face painting taking place throughout the weekend together with music from Abbey Gate and Eccleston school choirs and the City of Chester band on Sunday, visitors were entertained as they sampled juicy apples and enjoyed tastings in the food department, pork burgers and sausages from the barbecue and a choice of apple desserts in the Cafe throughout the weekend.

“The weekend was a great success with a fantastic response from the local community and the villages of Aldford, Eccleston and Saighton receiving an overwhelming number of apples towards their village juice appeal.  In fact, each of the two crates provided for each village were already full by Saturday evening!” commented Iain Wylie, managing director.

“Our Apple Weekend has seen a great number of visitors to the garden centre this weekend which has helped to create a real sense of community spirit.  I am delighted that by continuing to work with the local community, Apple Weekend was even bigger and better than last year.  We are providing a source of information and advice for anyone wishing to grow their own apple trees and inspiration for producing delicious meals with their own homegrown apples too.  Growing your own fruit not only reduces food miles but the produce is fresher and tastier too,” Iain concluded.

Grosvenor will be hosting a celebration of the great British apple next weekend, Saturday 9^th and Sunday 10^th October, between 11am and 3pm, held in conjunction with the local community of surrounding villages and Eaton Estate.

As part of its Growing Communities initiative, Grosvenor will be showcasing the versatility of this delicious fruit, as visitors can see apple press demonstrations and taste freshly squeezed juice, together with samples in the food department, an apple themed menu in the Café and pork burgers and sausages from the barbecue served with homemade apple sauce.  Les Armstrong, Head Gardener of Eaton Hall, will also be on hand to identify unknown apples grown from visitors’ gardens.

To keep everyone entertained, there will be children’s nature activities, storytelling, face painting and live music from the school choirs of the local villages and City of Chester band.  

With competitions for all ages to enjoy, visitors can try their hand at peeling the longest apple peel, hunt for Annie Apple and there will be a prize for everyone who visits Grosvenor dressed as a Granny Smith, Pink Lady, Red Devil, or any other apple variety - and there are plenty to choose from with more than 3000 varieties grown here in Great Britain!  

The village schools of Aldford, Eccleston and Saighton have also been learning about apples and each has produced an apple-themed display on view at the garden centre throughout the weekend. 

And everyone can help to raise funds for local villages by bringing along apples from their gardens to add to containers at the front of the centre, the contents of which will then be pressed into juice locally before being bottled to sell at village fetes and functions over the coming months to raise funds for community projects.  

“Our Apple Weekend last year proved immensely popular with everyone ready to embrace the versatile great British apple.  It is testament to the community spirit here in Chester that local schools and villages are supporting Apple Weekend and we hope to be able to raise even more funds for local villages and our own adopted charity for 2010, Claire House Children’s Hospice, who will be here throughout the weekend,” commented Iain Wylie, managing director. 

Grosvenor, located in Belgrave, Chester will once again be helping to grow communities by joining forces with Eaton Estate and surrounding villages to celebrate the British apple.

Celebrating its 21st birthday, the national Apple Days initiative has struck a chord with Grosvenor over the past few years with 2009 seeing an Apple Weekend event at the garden centre which encompassed villagers and schools from Aldford, Eccleston and Saighton all taking part in a great Apple Weekend celebration.

Villagers and customers will be asked to bring along their apples which will be turned into bottles of juice for the villages to sell at fetes and other village events to raise funds for the community.  Last year the villages invested the funds into an apple press, a new sound system for the village church and improving a community play area.

Working within the community is always at the forefront of the garden centre’s focus with many events taking place throughout each year and the Apple Weekend will once again develop Grosvenor’s strong links with the community at a time when the home-grown British apple is falling from our trees. 

“The British apple has a great following in Chester and the local area with apple trees the most popular fruit trees in our gardens.  Such a versatile and nutritious fruit deserves to be highlighted at this time of year when we are all wondering which new recipes we can try with our bumper crop of home-grown apples,” said Iain Wylie, managing director.

There are thought to be more than 7,000 varieties of apple grown worldwide with around 3,000 grown here.  It is no wonder then that many people are not sure of which types of apple are growing in their gardens.  At Grosvenor’s Apple Weekend on Saturday 9th and Sunday 10th October, visitors will be able to bring along their apples for Les Armstrong, Head Gardener at Eaton Estate to identify; he’ll also be happy to answer any horticultural questions.  There will also be hands-on activities, with a real apple press in action and customers can taste the juice - hot off the press! With live cooking demonstrations, competitions, children’s nature activities, storytellers with traditional tales, music, food tasting and much more besides!

“Our Apple Weekend has grown over the last two years and this year’s event held once again in conjunction with Eaton Estate and local villages and schools promises to be even bigger and better – a true culmination of our work within the neighbourhood over the past 12 months,” Iain concluded.

Grosvenor Garden Centre’s Real Food Festival held last weekend was a great success with many stallholders selling out fast!

Marking a celebration of the tastiest, freshest produce from the region with producers including Elwy Valley lamb, Rowlands Red Poll beef, Jamie Ward’s free range pork and newly launched Cheshire Chips who re-stocked three times on Saturday alone, Grosvenor’s Real Food Festival was a continuation of its support of local, artisan producers.

“Whatever we sell today (Sunday) is a bonus,” said Alison from Alison’s Homemade Treats,

“We really did not expect to sell so many jams and cheeses yesterday and we will definitely be back next year!” Alison continued.

This sentiment was echoed across the 26 stalls with many expressing interest for the third Real Food Festival at Grosvenor next summer.

“With queuing visitors and selling out of burgers and sausages on the barbecue, we would not have believed it could be possible for our second Festival to outshine last year’s inaugural event by a country mile!” said Iain Wylie, managing director.

By offering the chance to meet each producer and taste their goods before buying to enjoy at home, visitors to Grosvenor’s Real Food Festival arrived in their hundreds and kept coming all weekend despite the weather!

Visitors could choose from hearty, homebaked pies and pasties, cakes and handmade chocolates, cider, jams and chutneys, fresh fruit and ice cream – all naturally made, reared and picked locally.

“We have been thrilled at the response to our celebration of local produce here at Grosvenor Garden Centre. Our support of producers from Cheshire and North Wales is just another step forward in our efforts to work closely with the community and boost small, artisan producers.  By hosting a Real Food Festival, we can help visitors to Grosvenor in turn support these producers too and this work continues all year long in our Food department and by sourcing local ingredients in our Café,” commented Iain Wylie, managing director.

“It has been a fantastic weekend here in the food department with many of our new lines seeing much interest from the visitors to our Real Food Festival,” said Dave Maguire, Food Department Manager,

“Seeing customers old and new and explaining the provenance of our goods here in the food department has ensured that people who came here looking for real food got what they wanted with a real emphasis on ‘local’,”Dave concluded.

“Our Real Food Festival will be back next year and thank you to the success of this year’s Festival, we will be able to expand the show to be even bigger and better,” said Events Co-ordinator, Claire Binns.

The banners are up, the tables are laid out and exhibitors are beginning to arrive for our Real Food Festival this weekend, Saturday 17th and Sunday 18th July, 10am – 4pm.

Beginning at 10am tomorrow morning, our Festival will offer even more delicious, home-made, home-grown and home-picked goodies than last year!

So come and meet the producers and hear all about their farming methods and taste their goods before you take your pick to enjoy at home.

Choose from home-baked pies and cakes, jams and chutneys, handmade chocolates, cider, fresh vegetables and roll poll beef and Elwy Valley lamb to name just a few of the mouth-watering, award winning local food on offer here at Grosvenor this weekend.

See you there!

What a week we are enjoying here at Grosvenor!  Not only have we managed to raise more than £600 for our charity thanks to our team of novice abseilers, we have also added to our stream of awards this year by being chosen as the WINNER in the Living and Style category of The Greatest Awards and received the Silver award in the Outdoor Leisure section too! 

These national awards are held annually and rely on a combination of customer feedback and a judging panel who visit and assess every centre before choosing ‘The Greatest’!

Recognising teamwork and working together to create excellence, our Home and Garden Leisure team obviously wowed the judges as they showed considerable “planning and involvement from all of the team led by buyer, Emma Anzani”. 

“The end result is not just a department but actually strategically placed indoor living areas and displays throughout the store,” said the judges.

And for the Greatest Outdoor Leisure Sales Team, our team “impressed with their product knowledge and know their customers and their product.”

See our awards page for more details of our success to date!

And we still have the Real Food Festival to come this weekend!  Watch this space for our next blog with lots more details, or visit our Events page now!

What a brilliant day we had here at the garden centre yesterday (ignoring the England result of course!).  We reached the grand final of our Schools Growing Competition with 60 children and their families turning up for the judging.

Six finalists from each of the 10 participating primary schools from Cheshire and North Wales displayed their petunias for the grand final.  Grosvenor’s Schools Ambassador, John Nightingale together with Grosvenor’s Young Horticulturist of the Year, James Mabon, were on hand to judge the winners.  Having regularly visited each school, John had already chosen the six healthiest plants from each school for the grand final.

After much deliberation, Daniel Scott from Aldford Primary School was judged to have grown the most successful Denim Wave Petunia and was presented with a trug full of Grosvenor goodies and £100 vouchers for his school.

Two runners-up, Miranda Hayes and Lily Seager of Sychdyn Primary and Dodleston Church of England Primary schools respectively, were also presented with Grosvenor prizes and £75 and £50 vouchers for their schools.

“Our schools growing competition has once again proved extremely popular with all of the children who took part this year and I am delighted that we are able to demonstrate to such a large number of children just how rewarding nurturing plants can be,” commented John Nightingale.

Through regular visits to the schools, John was able to offer advice to the children together with all the equipment required to get growing, including compost, pots and the plug plants themselves. 

“It is always encouraging to us here at Grosvenor that this competition proves so popular year after year and thanks to the children’s hard work and enthusiasm and John’s hints and tips, I am sure the competition will awaken the interest of the gardeners of the future and we are already looking forward to next year’s competition,” stated Iain Wylie, Managing Director.

Each of the 60 finalists present also received a packet of free seeds as a reward for their efforts.

There’s lots to do at Grosvenor all year round. Read on to find out more or why not keep checking our Events and What’s On Page for details of forthcoming events.

‘How To…’ Getting the ‘Wow’ factor with Fabulous Flowers - £8 including tea/coffee and cake Thursday 24th June 3pm - 6pm. Fill your garden with blooms to cut for the house or simply to enjoy where they grow. Learn which are the best flowers for fragrance and which ones to grow to attract bees and butterflies. How to prolong displays; how to support plants effortlessly and how to inject life into a fading border display as summer wanes. How to achieve the cottage garden feel in a modern plot. Booking is essential.

Grosvenor’s Real Food Festival, Saturday 17th and Sunday 18th July, 10am – 4pm. Following the success of our Real Food Festival last year, we will once again be offering visitors the chance to meet the farmers and producers to taste their freshly made, homegrown and home baked goods in our Festival marquee.
For a flavour of real, natural and hearty food to take away and enjoy, more than 20 stalls of delicious, tasty produce will be available throughout the weekend including cider, handmade chocolates, jams, chutneys, preserves, Elwy Valley lamb, tractor-wheel pies and Cheshire Farm ice cream.
So visit Grosvenor’s Real Food Festival on 17th and 18th July - entrance is free and you can even enjoy sausages and burgers from our barbecue.

Grosvenor’s Farmers’ Market, Friday 9th July, from 10am. Don’t forget the second Friday of every month when Grosvenor holds its popular Farmers’ Market.  Choose from a wide variety of organic eggs, cheeses, meats, fresh fruit and vegetables, freshly baked pies, pasties and cakes to name but a few – but be quick, many products regularly sell out!

Children’s Workshops, Tuesday 27th July and every Tuesday in August (except 31st), 10am – 11am. A perfect introduction for the gardeners of tomorrow – small classes for children aged 5 and over with fun, hands on instructions on how to plant seedlings and care for plants.  Children will even take home their plants from the Workshop and free seeds to sow at home.  Booking is advised with tickets available at £5.50 from Customer Services, to include a drink and freshly baked cookie.  Children must be accompanied by an adult at all times.

Plant Workshops at Grosvenor

Grosvenor has once again launched its annual Growing Competition for Schools to inspire young gardeners to get growing!

Grosvenor’s Schools’ Ambassador, John Nightingale, has now visited each of the eleven participating schools to deliver the plug plants, compost, pots and plenty of advice required to grow a prize winning Petunia.

Working within the community as much as possible to highlight the ease of nurturing and caring for plants from the moment they are planted, Grosvenor supports each child with visits to each school throughout the competition, culminating in a final judging of the top three plants in June.
 
Each of the eleven schools were keen to enter the competition with some marking it as a highlight in the school’s calendar!

“The children here look forward to taking part in Grosvenor’s competition each year,” stated Liz Richardson, Deputy Head at Barkers Lane Primary School in Wrexham.

With Petunias always a popular favourite and blue this year’s key colour choice, Grosvenor opted for the Denim Wave Petunia for children to grow as their competition entry.

“We have been hosting this competition for 11 years and each year it is wonderful to see such enthusiasm from the children involved.  They can hardly wait to get started on caring for their Petunia!” John commented.

With further visits to each school scheduled for the coming weeks, John will be on hand to offer more hints and tips to help the children make the most of their Petunia.

The grand final will take place at Grosvenor on Sunday 27th June where the winning Petunia grower and two runners-up will each receive a selection of gardening goodies from Grosvenor together with up to £100 Grosvenor vouchers for their schools.