Wyevale Garden Centre launched Plan Apple at its Bicester branch on Monday, September 15, where Wyevale's sustainability director, Dr Alan Knight, outlined ten areas where environmental issues overlap with the concerns of garden centres.

The ten areas, which the firm is calling its ten commandments, are rediscovering the local community, connecting with the source of food, working with nature, encouraging carbon positive gardening, ensuring supply chains benefit everyone, protecting endangered forests, working towards peat-free gardening, using less water, aiming towards zero waste and inspiring personal well-being and sustainable lifestyles.

Dr Knight said: "Wyevale's Plan Apple is the result of our programme to identify some core sustainability principles for Wyevale and lays down the detailed framework to allow us to deliver them."

Wyevale has planned a series of initiatives to look at the different issues and its first actions have been to launch plastic pot recycling at its centres and ban the use of polystyrene pot trays.