Cowell's Garden Centre has traded from the same site on Main Road, Woolsington, near Newcastle Airport and Ponteland, since 1978. Now in its second generation of family ownership, the centre grows and sells bedding plants, shrubs and trees alongside garden sundries and gifts, and its hanging baskets have taken gold medals at Gateshead's annual flower festival. Staff give one-to-one planting advice rather than following a corporate script, a point of difference the family stresses over the larger chain-owned centres nearby. The business operates from this single Woolsington plot only, with no other branches in Tyne and Wear or Northumberland. Almost five decades of continuous trading on one site have made it a fixture for gardeners across north Newcastle, Ponteland and the surrounding villages, who return for stock the family selects rather than centrally bought ranges.
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