Opening hours...
Monday - Saturday: 9am - 6pm
Sunday: 9am - 1pm
Contact Us...
t: 01162 364564
e: contact@brooksidenurseries.co.uk
Shop Online Now...
Shop Online Here!
About Us
Brookside Nurseries was founded in 1979 when the owners, Steve and Margaret Budding, married. At that time we had a second hand greenhouse measuring 80ft x 40ft and a stall at the side of the road selling home grown vegetables. That was fine until the winter when we moved down the drive and started to sell from an Alton greenhouse that measured 30ft x 12ft. How times change! We now have over an acre of glasshouse and polytunnels and a purpose built shop.
Over the years more product lines have been added and we now sell the majority of smaller gardening products as well as fresh fruit, vegetables and superbly presented floristry for which we have just extended our premises to allow for a dedicated floristry room, a larger selection of fruit and vegetables and brand new cold storage for our fresh flowers.
From just two of us in 1979 we now employ about a dozen people, ranging from full time staff to Saturday kids. This size of staff means that we always have on hand dedicated growing, retail, floristry, manual and consultation staff.
Charity Work
2004 was both our silver wedding anniversary and our 25th year in business. To mark the occasion we decided to raise money for local charity Rainbows. To start off Steve was sponsored to shave off his 32 year old beard. This alone raised half of the £7040 that we gave to Rainbows. The rest was raised by a huge raffle and an open day held in September 2004 with Leicester City legend Alan Birchenall as our chief guest. Leicestershire Chrysanthemum Society held their early show and we had live music (provided by John Budding and his band), a hog roast, skittling for a pig (well, half a frozen pig) and many other side stalls. Luckily weather was on our side and many of our customers enjoyed the event.
This year our chosen charity is Breakthrough Breast Cancer. We mainly raise money by collecting customers' change but during November and December we have Christmas Demonstration Evenings with Steve making up Christmas flower arrangements which are then raffled. These evenings are available to groups and must be pre-booked. Ideal numbers are between 40 and 50 and we can offer a buffet supper if required.
