Clarke & Spears International
Venus 240, 2675 LN Honselersdijk
P.O. Box 27, 2675 ZG Honselersdijk, The Netherlands
t +31 (0) 174 648340
f +31 (0) 174 648342

Clarke and Spears International is delighted to announce some important changes to our business that will greatly benefit our existing and future customers.

Following the planned retirement at 70 of our chairman and financier, Keith Russell, the opportunity arose to restructure the company in a way that would leave it best placed to offer an improved service to our customers in all areas.

For our Dutch plant export business this clearly had to be to make it part of a larger organisation to bring in economies of scale and to further develop our sales, marketing and ordering systems with emphasis on service and technological solutions to improve customer experience. To this end we are pleased to announce that the plant export business has been taken over by Noviflora who will begin trading under the CSI banner from 20th June 2011.

Noviflora is the 5th largest plant export company in Holland and are also located at Naaldwijk – please see their website for more info. The great news is that the whole of the exiting CSI plant team remains intact and are transferring to Noviflora's premises. All staff, phone, fax and email addresses remain the same and business will continue exactly as before, lead by Herman and under the name Clarke & Spears International.

For our planter business, this is subject to a management buyout led by current CSI Managing Director, Tony Sawyer. From June 20th the planter business will trade under the name Livingreen Design Ltd. Once again, everything remains the same, with the team transferring directly to the new business. While the address and phone numbers continue as before the email address will change and you will be advised of these next week. The Livingreen Team are very excited about the changes and the opportunity it brings to concentrate on further developing the most vibrant and exciting range of professional planters on the market.

The exterior plant business and cash and carry at Knaphill will continue for the short term but will within the next month or so transfer to a new location. However please be assured that there will still be a C&C service offered and that Alan and the team will continue to support our valued customers in this area of the business. We will announce more on this as soon as possible.

Please be assured that its business as usual up until June 20th. Please continue to place your orders as normal which will be fulfilled in full and on time by either the current CSI or the new companies depending on when the goods are dispatched. All the outstanding orders for either business will automatically be transferred on June 20th and there will be absolutely no interruption to supply.

These changes are great news for the whole of the professional landscape industry creating as they do, two new fully funded businesses with the staff and backup to offer new levels of service and choice in the market. The coming year promises to be very exciting as planned improvements are rolled out. We will be writing to all our customers within the next 7 days with further details of the new businesses including important accounting information but in the meantime if you have any questions please contact Tony Sawyer on 0131 440 9804.

Chelsea Gold Winner '2011'

David Cubero and James Wong win ‘Gold’ at Chelsea Flower Show with their garden for Tourism Malaysia. Clarke & Spears sourced and imported all the plant material for the garden, with specimens up to 6.0m plus all the ground cover plants. This is the 2nd year that Clarke & Spears have supplied David & James at Chelsea Flower Show with Gold medals awarded both times.

Clarke and Spears