Summary
• Manufacturers are capitalising on the grow-your-own trend.
• Log stores, pet runs and bike sheds are popular.
• “Heritage” products like waney edge sheds are in vogue.
• Garden offices were much in evidence.

The auditors are still crunching numbers, but the consensus among exhibitors at this year’s Glee was that the show was a little slower than previous years – perhaps not surprisingly given the current economic malaise.

That’s not to say, however, that good business was hard to find. Quite the contrary for Grange Fencing, for example, which sold the centrepiece of its stand, a new Apollo pergola, and took a good order for its composters on day one. Marketing executive Beverley Main reported healthy interest across the full 2009 range, from its free-standing circular flower walks to its pressure-treated rounded railway sleepers. The latter were used on the stand to form raised vegetable beds, capitalising on the current grow-your-own trend.

The Good Life

In fact, emulators of The Good Life would have found rich pickings at Glee, whether they were looking for ideas for growing vegetables, keeping chickens, storing firewood or parking their bikes.

“Veggie growing is very in vogue,” said M&M Timber’s Nigel Poyner, whose view of the show was perhaps the most positive. “It’s been very buoyant so far,” he said, speaking on the second day of the show. “Certainly not the gloom and doom we were expecting.”

Everything on the colourful M&M stand was new for 2009 and included pet enclosures, a play range, recycling storage units, vegetable beds and log stores, all in new technology micronised timber. “The log stores are going really well,” said Mr Poyner, “and we’re also dabbling with [wood fuel] briquettes.”

The biggest statement on M&M’s stand was the thatch roofed and sailcloth-lined Kalahari, a structure too monumental to be described as a mere gazebo, but which performs the same function, providing a safari-style outdoor living space. Wannabe big game hunters take note.

Out of Africa, however, pure English gardening nostalgia could be found elsewhere on the stand in the form of a traditional waney overlap shed.

Market leader Forest Garden also tipped its hat to the past with its Heritage waney edge corner shed with log store – ideal for people wanting to get back to nature, said Forest’s chief executive, Jonathan Halford.

Customer service

Forest’s impressive stand showed some of the 130 or so new products for 2009, including timber playhouses, summerhouses, arbours, chicken coops and bike stores.

The company was also flagging up its service capabilities, which are seen as key to continued success in the current climate. “We delivered 60,000 units to homes last year and we’re launching a home installation service for 2009,” said Mr Halford. “It’s not rocket science, we’re just keeping close to the market and building on it.”

Forest is also easing trade between it and its customers with its just-launched Tesco-style online ordering system. “The independent sector traditionally relied on fax-based ordering but we’ve now set up ForestConnect. It was six months in the making and we’re very excited by it,” said Mr Halford. “I’m a big fan of simplifying things and this website does just that.”

Grange Fencing, M&M Timber and Forest Garden all cite the fact that they manufacture their products on their own home turf as a huge advantage. And “vertical integration” is also at the heart of the operation of another Glee exhibitor, the Scottish Prison Service (SPS).

SPS’s range of garden products includes furniture, pergolas, sheds, dog kennels and runs, all of which are manufactured by inmates at Scottish prisons. “We use European redwood which we get from various UK sources and process at our own mills,” said sales manager Anthony Apperley. “It’s brought in as battens, goes to secondary processing and then to our machine shops. The instructors are qualified to teach, so the inmates gain a skill, which is recognised by a Scottish Vocational Qualification. It’s part of the inmates’ rehabilitation and the money generated goes back into the SPS.”

While they are robust and excellent quality, SPS’s garden products are extremely competitively priced, and they can be found at garden centres and timber merchant, mostly independents.

Cabins for rest, work and play were out in force again this year. September was a record month for sales of garden buildings for Polish manufacturer Jagram, which was exhibiting its new line of fully insulated and wired garden offices and reporting good feedback. “A customer suggested solar panels, so we may well add them for Glee 2009,” said general manager Dawid Kopalski.

“Spa houses have been really successful this year,” he said, adding that he anticipated top sellers in 2009 to be the garden offices and a new range of cedar trellises.

Specialising in the top end of the market, Jagram is also experimenting with the use of Thermowood. “We have a range of Thermowood decking and are waiting to see if the market is ready for more Thermowood garden products,” said Mr Kopalski. “It’s more expensive, but very ecological and end users are coming to the conclusion that they can’t afford to buy cheap.”

Record sales

Pinewood Garden Products specialises in standard and bespoke log cabins, with the company’s Mike Wells reporting “record business” over the summer months, mostly for the tailor made models. “Half the mill’s turnover has been on bespoke cabins this year and this is growing, even in the current market,” he said.

The company has, however, “moved with the times” and also imports a standard range of cabins from German supplier Skan Holz, one of which was displayed on the stand. “We will be branching out into decking and fencing and so on, but buying in and selling on,” said Mr Wells. “We are increasingly concentrating on retail rather than manufacturing.”

For Keith Lynch, director of GB Cabins, exhibiting at Glee meant “starting with a wish list and building for a purpose rather than shoehorning in an existing design”. The result was an attention-grabbing cabin near the top of its Langham Garden Building range, complete with “house quality” windows and a mezzanine floor. The cabin also boasted 240mm-thick walls, comprising a 70mm outer log, a 100mm cavity with insulation and a 70mm inner log, resulting in a U-value of 0.28.

Sold as holiday homes, fishing lodges or even for people who can’t get on the property ladder and who are setting up home in their parents’ garden, the cabins are manufactured in Lithuania from Siberian timber.

Business was brisk for the second-time exhibitor. “We sell through agents and are doing much better than most,” said Mr Lynch. “We’re being proactive in beating the downturn and this year have sold about one-and-a-half times last year’s level. We’re attacking the market on all fronts and are about to set up a website to sell peripheral products.”

Outdoor living

Outdoor living is at the heart of the Hillhout brand. Along with other brands, including Outdoor Life, which specialises in cabins and garden buildings, Hillhout has been amalgamated into the Dutch market-leading Deli-Mij group. “It’s now the largest manufacturer and distributor in Europe and has its own sawmills throughout Europe,” said Outdoor Life director of sales Steve Wain, adding that, while Hillhout’s reputation for high-end niche products will be maintained, the range will be expanded “from top to bottom end”.

The restructuring has led to a huge investment in stock over the past year, with UK-destined product held in a Suffolk base before being distributed to timber and builders merchants, although many products are now home delivered and can also be installed.

“It’s been a tough year although we’re 14% up on last year,” said Mr Wain. “It will probably be a declining market next year, but we expect Hillhout’s market share to increase by being innovative and providing aspirational products.”

Al fresco cooking

Just such a product is Hillhout’s multi-functional outdoor cooking cabin, combining a covered seating area and top dollar barbecue.

Family-run Plum Products was also making a feature of its outdoor cooking range. New for spring 2009 is its range of “Arbourcues”, a combination of arbour and barbecue that provides shelter for the al fresco chef.

The company has expanded its range of gazebos and has added plinths to the collection to provide extra height. It also specialises in play products and its spectacular Wildebeest play set took pride of place on the stand.

Comprising three play decks, play dens, a climbing ramp, sandpit, swing, two-seat ride, play tent, two slides, clatter bridge and a rock face, the set is the largest Plum has produced. Not at the expense of the overall appearance of the garden, however. “All our products, whether they are from our play, garden product or barbecue ranges, are designed to blend together and with the surrounding garden,” said marketing manager Katie Howard.