Pro Landscaper’s Most Influential Biosecurity and Best Product Range winner, Provender on why educating customers is important when bringing in new stock. 

Founded in 2003, Provender Nurseries has secured a double win in the Pro Landscaper Most Influential Nurseries Awards for both Best Value for Money and Biosecurity, two victories that go hand in hand explains managing director, Richard McKenna:

Managing director at Provender, Richard McKenna

“To offer our customers the wide range we do, we need to import and that means we need to give [the customer] the best confidence in the way we do this.”

On average over the last five years, 80% of stock sold by Provender was imported; making it no surprise that the nursery has become widely known for its high-level biosecurity practices, a recognition McKenna says wasn’t the intention; “we just wanted to do the job right.”

Back in July 2024 Provender became the trade supplier to establish its own Control Point (CP) after significant changes were brought in to the Border Target Operating Model; McKenna notes that the process of opening its own CP was a “learning curve” and a lot of work with different departments, from HMRC, Border Force, and Defra was needed to make it possible, adding:

“It was quite challenging and really time consuming, but doing what we do, we get on with it.” And while he’s sure there will inevitably be more changes in the future, McKenna says “Nursery people are generally very adaptive, we always find the solutions to problems.”

Provender’s CP has meant the nursery now has more control over what stock comes in, when it comes in, and how it comes in, allowing the team to avoid potential delays throughout its supply chain. But as McKenna says: “Biosecurity is more than just the Control Point,” and he’s right, while Provender is known for its CP, there is much more work that goes into supplying the product range it does.

Control Point first delivery

McKenna explains: “We visit nearly all of our suppliers on an annual basis and we do a lot of hand selecting of stock”, adding that this means reviewing its supplier’s growing facilities and checking over all paperwork, all necessary steps the nursery takes to maintain its Plant Healthy Certification.

After becoming the ninth nursery in the UK to achieve the certification, the nursery is now audited annually and every team member on site is trained by Defra in best biosecurity practices – “so you see, the CP is just the cherry on top of the cake.”

Over its 20 plus years, the nursery has continuously evolved to meet the changing demands and needs of its customers, resulting in the product range we see today, as McKenna notes: “the good designers, the good landscape architects, they’re all looking for more interesting material. We’ve worked hard to offer a more interesting, wider range of material.”

But as McKenna adds bringing in all this new material also comes with a level of education: “When we get new products we always try to inform and educate our customers, because we can introduce something new, but unless our customer knows about it, they won’t necessarily buy it.”

He recalls a recent training session surrounding importing and plant selection, noting that all those customers will now have an “elevated knowledge of plants” and more insight into what’s available to them when designing a scheme, which McKenna says can only help in combating the climate crisis:

“We need leaders in the landscape and design sector to demonstrate how good new varieties and materials can be and that’s where the education side of things comes in. We offer products that can be interpreted differently, shaped differently, grown differently for various projects, it shows the real scale of how those materials can enhance the environment.”

McKenna recognises that the nursery is accountable and responsible for each of the plants it grows, imports and sells on, concluding that “we must make sure that what we’re offering our customers is right. The range of products is important but the quality of what we offer is also important, it’s all linked.”

Check out Provender’s top tips for maintaining plant health and buying with confidence from Plant Healthy growers in the June issue of Pro Landscaper, here.