Hospice staff visited the Christchurch branch and enjoyed a tour of the thriving and bustling garden centre.

MD Martin Stewart said: “Our decision to make Lewis-Manning our charity of the year in Dorset was an easy decision to make because of the affinity and admiration that we have for the amazing work that they provide to the patients and families that they support.

“We’re looking forward to getting our whole team on board and engaged with fundraising for the charity in as many ways as we can.  We feel lots of synergy with the hospice, and with sunflowers at the heart of their brand we have plans to launch a sunflower initiative in our Centres to celebrate them and will become a part of their ‘Grow Some Sunshine’ campaign.  We hope it will inspire and motivate our customers to come on board too.

“Every customer at our till points will have the option to donate 10p to the hospice with their purchase.

“We will be launching our exciting partnership with Lewis-Manning Hospice Care in our quarterly magazine which goes out to 40,000 customers, hopefully encouraging volunteers to come on board, promote events and inform people, who might need support, about the extraordinary services that are available.”

Lewis-Manning Hospice Care offers a range of free hospice care services aimed at helping people to live well through their illness, closer to home and at home.

“We are incredibly excited to be working in partnership with Stewarts,” said Nicki Cluley, corporate fundraiser. “They are very well established and highly regarded in the local community. There is great synergy between Stewarts the charity and the patients and families we support with life-limiting illnesses across East Dorset and Purbeck. We’ve agreed on some fantastic ideas on how we’re going to work together throughout our time as their nominated charity, we are extremely grateful for the opportunity.”