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Phoenix Perennials recognized for growing gardeners

May 29, 2013, Richmond, B.C. — Phoenix Perennials has won a national award for its efforts to grow gardeners through dynamic workshops and targeted online content.

The Chrysler Garden Centre of the Year Awards recognized Phoenix Perrenials for its efforts to encourage gardening in the community by honouring the company with the Growing Gardeners award.

“We have always been dedicated to education at Phoenix Perennials,” said Gary Lewis, the company’s owner. “We offer about 30 different workshops a year on diverse topics. I give up to 15 garden club and garden show talks a year and we have lots of online content with our e-newsletter, email alerts, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Pinterest. We are also dedicated to one on one education and are always happy to meet any gardener at whatever level they are currently at in their gardening expertise.”

Lewis also said that he tries to focus on encouraging gardening among different generations of gardeners. That means princess, Star Wars and Harry Potter themed workshops for the kids, workshops on cocktail gardening and other food related themes for Gen Xers and Gen Yers, and cutting edge workshops for adults of all ages, not to mention Gardening 101 and Gardening 201, which cover the basics of growing perennials and woody plants.

“The judges commented that they were impressed with Phoenix Perennials’ focus on promoting perennials and that education was such a key focus for the nursery,” said Rebecca Doutre, a representative of the CNLA. “They felt that Phoenix Perennials was doing a lot of unique things to entice customers into the store, including the workshops that they offer.”

The Chrysler Garden Centre of the Year Awards is part of the CNLA’s National Awards of Excellence program. The awards recognize the professional work of the association’s retail members in various categories, including Growing Gardeners, Growing the Environment, and Growing Sales, among others.