James joined Green Pastures in January 2009 when he and his partner Michelle took over the reigns from Al and Rita. Since he was knee high James has been involved with plants, having grown up on his parents farm and market garden and regularly produced veg for their farm shop. Upon leaving School he trained at Notcutts Garden Centre where he stayed for nearly 23 years, becoming Manager after 10 years. James also uses his knowledge to write regular gardening articles and has written a gardening column with the Eastern Evening News since the year 2000. He is a keen photographer, specialising in plants of course! Not that he has much spare time as most days he can be found here looking after our customers and plants.
Michelle literally grew up with the business since her parents, Al and Rita, began Green Pastures Nursery in 1986 when she was just eleven years old. Despite being so involved in the family business she decided to look for pastures new and undertook a series of different jobs, but has always excelled most in sales roles. Michelle is a natural “people person” and since she joined Al and Rita back in 2002 she has become a real favourite with the Green Pastures customers. All the growing of our home grown crops is overseen by Michelle and her favourite job of all is the planting and nurturing of over 1000 hanging baskets for our customers every year.
Alwyn (Al) is very much the father figure of Green Pastures and now he has become a Grandfather he’s decided it’s time to slow down and enjoy some time for the finer points of life; i.e. Sailing and Fishing!!! Having built the original business with his bare hands he’s far from wanting to let go (not that anyone will let him!!!) and he’s still a vital part of looking after the customers and carrying the latest site improvements.
Famous for her warm welcome and caring personality, Rita has become a lifelong friend of so many of our customers. Since building up the business from scratch with Al, (whilst raising 3 children including Michelle) Rita has become a legend in customer service. Her caring persona also extends to the plants too which she lavishes (but rarely kills) with kindness. As anyone who knows Rita can testify, she is also our leading fashion expert and she’s our florist too.
Liz is almost an adopted member of the Evans family having been a lifelong friend of Michelle from School. Her role is to manage the Farm Shop which she has overseen since it reopened in 2007. Before joining us Liz worked in the food and retail industry, so is well placed to ensure that our high standards of food quality and service are always maintained. Liz has always strived to bring an imaginative offering to our ranges and her knowledge in the kitchen is constantly used to inspire our customers.
A chat with Rosie has become an essential part of the visit for many of our customers. That’s if you can find her as she loves to find warm cosy corners which usually means one of our polytunnels! Whilst Rosie’s original role was pest control she now seems to have happily found her niche in public relations!
