"The exhibition is looking fantastic and there is a buzz about the place," said Phil. 

"If you're considering coming to the show over the next couple of days, then make sure you do because you won't be disappointed. There are more exhibitors than ever and they've got lots to show you."

During the first day of the show a film crew from SKY TV interviewed leading celebrities from the garden industry about changes to Sunday trading.

SOLEX takes place in Hall 5 of the NEC in Birmingham.

The exhibition is open for three days – Tuesday and Wednesday, July 7-8, 9am to 5.30pm; and Thursday, July 9, 9am to 5pm.

There are large car parks at the NEC, and parking will be free 

To register your place for SOLEX click here

For more information about SOLEX visit the exhibition website at http://www.lofa.co.uk/solex/home.html

LG Outdoor’s Green Room concept, which enables garden centres to offer own-brand ranges and compete with online sales, now accounts for almost 50% of the company’s business, group chairman Richard Grimmer told SOLEX Sun yesterday.

Green Room is a working name for LG’s volume business which gives garden centres access to ‘affordable containers’ of unbranded product which they can own-brand and and price without fear of comparison with branded goods sold online. The process by which consumers check out product in store and then buy from the cheapest online source is known as ‘showrooming’.

“The beauty of buying unbranded is that they can call it what they want and price it how they want,” said Richard. “It’s been a huge success for us and we’re doing more and more every year.”

Meanwhile, LG continue to innovate elsewhere in the range. More accessories have been introduced this tear, many in full-colour packaging, to fill the gap left by the withdrawal of Solus products in the category.

One of the most innovative new products on the stand (515) is the new Hanoi Harbour range featuring an attractive rattan-style weave made from hard-wearing rope (pictured below), which gives the furniture a soft, tactile feel. Tables are have detailing made from brushed acacia.

Also new are Sail Canopies – combining the benefits of a canopy and a gazebo.

Garden furniture specialist Kettler has revealed an exciting new collection for the 2016 season at this year’s SOLEX, building on the huge success of the Palma Casual Dining range.

Kettler has introduced Palma Mini and Palma Cube to the popular Casual Dining collection, reinforcing its position as the home of outdoor furniture that combines dining and relaxing.

Available in both whitewash and rattan, Palma Mini is a smaller version of the Palma Corner set, with a rectangular mid-height table, corner sofa and two stools that seats 4-6 people, bringing the Palma experience to an even wider audience. Palma Cube, a square Casual Dining table, with four stools that sit neatly underneath, is either the perfect extension to any Palma set or a beautiful furniture set on its own. 



Kettler is also extending its Wicker collection, with the addition of the stylish Hampshire and La Mode furniture sets, both of which offer a dining or sofa set, as well as a Hampshire Balcony/Breakfast set which is chic, yet very neat. The Wicker collection also features a new contemporary daybed Pod for simple relaxation.

The company is strengthening its popular Metal collection with Eton, a modern set for the design conscious customer, as well as new fabrics for 2016. 

Visitors to SOLEX also saw a new addition to Kettler’s ‘Urbano’ collection of contemporary garden furniture. Ocho is a versatile and functional circular set with a table, stool and cut out stool that can fit together to form a number of different shapes and sets. Designed for a modern lifestyle, Ocho joins other innovative products within the Urbano collection, with intelligent design to appeal to a younger customer.



Paul Bevington, Managing Director at Kettler, said: "Our original Casual Dining range continues to grow from strength to strength and we’re delighted with how popular the collection is with retailers and customers. 2016 promises to be a big year for us and we are committed to support our Casual Dining range to drive even more sales, with more advertising, point of sale and promotional activity. 

“With our entire 2016 collection, we continue to lead the way and demonstrate that Kettler offers garden furniture innovation and design at its best.”

Andrew MacMillan, an expert in differentiating business through customer experience, is the guest speaker at SOLEX and he gave his first talk on the opening afternoon of the show.

Andrew McMillan started his career as a management trainee with the John Lewis Partnership at Brent Cross. He quickly moved up through the management ranks and progressed to the head office to take charge of the department stores’ customer centric Intelligence Team. They acted as an internal business consultancy reporting on competitive strategy, product differentiation and value, catchment area and demographics for new branches and customer service.

In 2000 Andrew was asked to lead on customer service for the department store division. The role saw him develop JLP’s market-leading culture and attitude towards customer service and sales with the 20,000 customer-facing Partners in 26 John Lewis shops across the UK. That customer-driven culture is something that has now become synonymous with the John Lewis brand.

Andrew joined a City based consultancy as a Principal Consultant before setting up his own consultancy in 2012 specialising in employee engagement, customer experience and customer centric business change. Consulting clients have included: Argos, Asda, Ecclesiastical Insurance, Kwik Fit, Jardine Motors Group, Lookers Motor Group, Greene King, Vauxhall Motors, Peugeot Citroen and Virgin Atlantic.

Andrew will be speaking again at SOLEX on:

• Wednesday - 10.30am & 14.30pm
• Thursday - 10.30am

Andrew says: "What did your business set out to do for its customers at its inception? In a fledgling business high quality personal customer service is a given or the business will fail. However, as a business develops it can lose touch with its roots as growth and financial control start to dominate the agenda.

"So, when was the last time you really thought about your customers experience when they interact with front-line staff and how those customers subsequently feel about your business? 

"Many businesses find themselves focussing on developing their products, services or processes when they think about customer experience and the interaction with staff is left to chance. 

"The reputation John Lewis enjoy is equally based on the quality of the experience delivered through their staff, as that is the value and quality of their products and services. It's a potential major point of differentiation in a crowded marketplace and one that many businesses fail to capitalise upon."

This beast of a brolly…sorry, parasol…takes pride of place on the Barlow Tyrie stand, where it was demonstrated for us by project manager Steven Still. It’s the ultimate in stylish shade protection for a large gathering and at 4m square, will comfortably cover an 8- or 10-piece dining set. The struts and pillar made from eucalyptus, a sustainable and affordable hardwood, and all the metal parts are powder coated for weather resistance.

Steven also demonstrated the company’s new Bermuda high dining chair and 90cm round table, in teak with stainless steel detailing. Elegant, substantial and solid in the grandest Barlow Tyrie tradition, the seats are also wide enough to accommodate the broadest and fidgetiest of beams in comfort and safety.

Gardeco launched a unique range of chimeneas at SOLEX today made from the world's first  crack-proof fire clay

Chimalin AFC fire-proof clay is exclusive to Gardeco, who developed the new material  in a top-secret process that took seven years to perfect.

Because of the strength and durability of this new advanced fire clay, the new chimeneas, shown on the SOLEX stand in a number of a glazed finishes, are offered with a five-year guarantee against thermal cracking, enabling users to fire a clay chimenea in the same way as a cast iron  for the first time.

There are also new fire bowls and a pizza oven made from Chimalin AFC

The launch is supported with an in-store vido and POS banners.

Above: Gardeco’s managing director, Isabelle Harris, launches the new Chimalin AFC range.

Alexander Rose announced at SOLEX today that they are to continue with their Outdoor Furniture Student Design Competition following the outstanding success of this year’s contest.

The number of entries this year trebled – from 17 after the 2014 launch to 56 – and the company believe it will grow year on year.

The company’s marketing consultant Giuseppe D’ana, announcing the 2015 winners, said the outstanding quality of the entries had given the judges a difficult job but was encouraging for the future of the industry, which is worth around £960 million.

The winners were:

Gold: Peter Geissler (De Montfort University)

Silver: Kacper Benicewicz (UCA Rochester)

Bronze: Joshua Younger (UCA Farnham)

Kacper Benicewicz’s design – a garden bench – has gone into immediate production in the Alexander Rose range as the Augusta bench, made in Vietnam from cornis, an affordable hardwood.

Above: Kacper Benicewicz (left) and Joshua Younger (right) with their winner’s certificates. Peter Geissler’s Gold award was accepted by his university tutor, Nicki Theokritoff (centre).

La Hacienda used SOLEX today for the official launch of their unique tower chimeneas – the Prestige range…

Made in the EU from hard-wearing steel, they boast clean geometric lines that will appeal to contemporary tastes.

Managing director John Goodwin says sourcing the products from Europe rather than Mexico or the Far East has cut delivery lead times by two thirds, an important benefit in busy summers like this year’s, which has seen outstanding outdoor leisure sales in garden centres.

“Our sales in June doubled,” John told SOLEX Sun, “which at times caused some out-of-stocks, so cutting delivery lead times to replenish stock more quickly becomes important.”

He predicts that La Hacienda’s overall sales are likely to be 20% up this year, due in part to burgeoning increases in online business through their leading retail customers.

Other new products on the stand (120) include fire pits and a tripod with hanging grill.

 Above: La Hacienda's content strategist Helen Crook with the new Prestige steel chimeneas

Furniture sets aimed at the younger garden-lover have proved a popular hit for Brundle Gardener this year.

The mushroom and animal-themed furniture have been a unique feature for garden centres while enhancing Brundle’s ethos of offering something different.

The furniture sets will be a centrepiece for Brundle Gardener at this week's Solex trade show and a spokesman for the company said: “The mushroom furniture set offers some enchantment to any garden.

“You can easily see children’s playing a game of make-believe with the set acting as a centrepiece for their imagination.

“We see the garden as a natural extension to the home so why shouldn’t children have their own area to host their own tea parties or play other fun and games? This has certainly caught on as garden centres view children’s furniture as more and more important.

“We have received a number of orders from garden centres looking to add some unique child-friendly products to their range.”

Both furniture sets are made from tough, robust fibreglass and vibrant water-based colours.

They are also UV stable to ensure they withstand the British weather.

For more information on the products, please visit www.brundlegardener.co.uk or phone 0131 335 5955.

Below is a range of colourful garden accessories you can see on the Brundle Gardener stand 360.

The main focus of SOLEX for SolarCentre is their new solar fairy light string called “Lumify”, part of their guaranteed winter working range,

They promise to yet again impress any solar critics by pushing the boundaries of what can be expected from solar in winter.  With working performance on a winter’s night purely from solar allowing the lights to run at full brightness for 6hrs a night, they also have a power saving mode which will enable the user to get up to 80 hrs run time from the included batteries and to top all this off a USB charge function too.

Also being launched at SOLEX by the SolarCentre are two new post lights, four new wall Lights, two new spot lights and one new security Light.  Plus the powersaving functionality is being added to the best two garden centre sellers at no additional cost, further improving customer satisfaction.

David Eaton, Director at the SolarCentre, said:  “Our goal at the SolarCentre is to keep pushing the boundaries of what is achievable from solar, for exterior home and garden lighting.  It is not just about brightness and performance but also about build quality to deliver great value for money.  We want customers to be proud to own a SolarCentre light and to share their satisfaction with all their friends.”

For more information visit www.solarcentre.co.uk

SOLEX takes place in Hall 5 of the NEC in Birmingham.

The exhibition is open for three days – Tuesday and Wednesday, July 7-8, 9am to 5.30pm; and Thursday, July 9, 9am to 5pm.

There are large car parks at the NEC, and parking will be free 

To register your place for SOLEX click here

For more information about SOLEX visit the exhibition website at http://www.lofa.co.uk/solex/home.html