The second ever Garden Re-Leaf Day will include a competition run by Westland Horticulture for retailers who run the most effective campaign - launched last year as the garden industry's Comic Relief equivalent - to win compost worth £6,000.
Hundreds of garden centres and suppliers are expected to take part in next year's Garden Re-Leaf Day on Friday, March 8, 2013. The event, which launches the spring gardening season, is expected to be bigger than last year, when more than 500 garden retailers and manufacturers took part.

Thousands of locally-organised activities are expected to take place across the country, including in-store events, school growing initiatives, community challenges, garden product promotions, fundraisers and competitions.

The Westland Challenge will require garden centres to submit their post-Garden Re-Leaf Day overview of event ideas, execution, publicity, footfall and sales indicators by Wednesday, May 1, 2013. Winners will be announced at the end of May and will receive a delivery of seven pallets of Westland Horticulture's new-for-2013 Gro-Sure All Purpose compost.

Garden Re-Leaf Day's designated charity will once more be Greenfingers, which creates magical gardens for children's hospices across the country. Last year more than £50,000 was raised through Re-Leaf Day initiatives, enabling two gardens to be built in Stoke-on-Trent and West Dunbartonshire.

Westland Horticulture's marketing director Keith Nicholson said: "We are extremely keen to get actively involved in this second Garden Re-Leaf Day initiative. We see it as an incredibly important opportunity to get people gardening throughout 2013.
"Westland works closely with the majority of garden centres across the country, so we wanted to show our support by offering this competition."

Garden Re-Leaf Day was founded by Boyd Douglas-Davies, who is also the chief executive of Hillview Garden Centre. "Garden Re-Leaf Day provides a valuable opportunity to inspire gardeners of all kinds to 'get gardening', attract customers early in the season, and raise money for charity," he said.

"We are delighted that Westland is again offering such a major incentive for garden centres to take part in Garden Re-Leaf Day. It will undoubtedly help to stimulate some show-stopping, PR-grabbing events, whether it's to make a difference to old public spaces, stimulate the public's appetite to 'have a go', or drive customers into store to start their gardening year."