garden centres

Eileen.
Most Garden centres today are commercial only,
If they can sell it they will stock it,but if they think otherwise then we cant get it....Consider this:
When was the last time you went to a Garden centre to purchase a certain item only to come away with much more than you bargained for.
And just to sum it all up, Can you remember going to a Garden centre in november and not seeing artificial Christmas Trees..........
Thats what commercial selling is all about.In your face productivity....Sad but true.
Best Wishes
Kev

aye i know kev, its all about the money now

I tend to get up early and so last sunday morning went to the garden centre to have a mooch round, picked up some bulbs and bits and bobs, took them to the checkout only to be told by the young thing behind the till that "we dont start serving until 11 o clock on sundays but you are welcome to go and have breakfast in our cafe" the time was 9 45 a.m. What is the point in opening a 9 a.m. paying someone to sit at the till just to tell customers that they cant buy anything. I plonked by basket on the checkout and left. Sorry to rant but I wondered if its just me or would anyone else have got cross?

I prefer to go to little nursery,s rather than garden centers now always find these places so impersonal The nursery I use now is the best one I have every been to its run by a family and they cant do enough to help any questions and there is always someone on hand to answer No cafe or artificial christmas trees only good well grown plants and shrubs No more big Garden centers for me

we dont seem to have any little nurserys around here but I wont be going back there for breakfast or anything else, I will stick to the local market from now on.

i know what you meen irish its very annoying.
if you wanted breakfast newtogarden you would have went to a cafe but you wanted gardening stuff so you went to a nursery, i can see why you got cross

Yep!! to Irish and Yep!! to New.
The only nursery we had near us closed forever last fall. So now the closest decent nursery is 40 miles to Atlanta or 60 miles to Athens, to the univ. If you need something quick it's the DIY store or the giant discount chain.

maybe theres a gap in the market for you to start a little nursery wohibuli

i also perfer nurseries we visited one on saturday and brought a small choisya ternata plant there was no name on it but as soon as the girl looked at it she was able to tell me the name of it, how and where to plant it. how big it grows and how and when i could give it a little haircut to keep its shape. was well impressed you wouldnt get this at a garden centre

There's Garden Centres and there's Garden Centres. We have four on a main road about five or six miles to the south of us here. Two are national ones that are good and one is a national one that isn't. The other is a cheap and cheerful that is always busy but also has knowledgeable staff. To the nrith we have two smaller independent ones but I wouldn't be so inclined to use them. I think the moral is, try them a couple of times and if you're not happy, go elsewhere

newtogardens, that is awful, opening the doors but not letting you actually buy anything,, crazy

wish we had a nursery around here

now sarah , that really is the difference between a nursery and a garden centre

I agree with Andrew. We have earmarked a couple of local garden centres and nurseries that offer good quality plants and they also have a knowledgable staff and we regularly use them.

Sadly a lot of garden centres are now bound up with competitive selling, but the staff are sometimes lacking in knowledge, experience or expertise.
Many have been forced to diversify with regards to the goods for sale in order to remain trading as its a very competitive market. Its also a seasonal market as well.
Garden centres and nurseries are very expensive places to run and maintain--heating, lighting staff salaries, taxes etc so they have to try to sale a wide range of products and goods as well as plants and garden sundries in order to survive.The other point is they have to comply with the Sunday trading laws in the U.K so the can sale some goods but not others if they open early before the 'official' trading times.

well tomorrow i am going to seek out a nursery, must be one left around here

It's a good idea Irish. We are able to purchase plants from a local nursery that are sometimes 50% cheaper than the same plants from a garden centre. It's worth trying to track down a local nursery if you can and they often supply the local garden centres as well, and the staff at the nursery are proper 'growers' so they have the knowledge about the plants as well.. Good luck, and let us know if you have any success.

thanks grenville, ill let you know how i get on..... strange really isnt it when all i want are seed tray , you wouldn't think they would be hard to find, one of the major stores is selling them but i refuse to pay 12 euro for a seed tray

Have you tried B& Q for seed trays.... do you have a branch of B & Q nearby? They have the cheap plastic ones at our local branch that do the job well. It's so frustrating that you can't obtain them locally at this time of year.
Good luck, and happy hunting tomorrow!

i can try them tomor , thanks again grenville

Well i don't drive and the nearest one to me is 3 miles away. I miss the looking around but i can get more than what i want from the internet. Found some good rare plant sites.

There are several locally owned garden centres and nurseries around here. Some are better than others. One has a good selection of hardy Geraniums and another has some unusual plants you wouldn't find in a large garden centre. Sometimes however I think the staff are just helpers that don't know much about the plants. But they are much more friendly places to use and don't seem to try and sell you things you don't want.

i had a quick look on the net last night and the only nursery i could find thats pretty close to me is at the back of the airport, not too bad i guess , its about 40 mins drive away .

Yes, the garden centres are becoming very competitive and commercialised. But they should sell seed trays in all seasons.

Here's the shop assistants' well-known excuse.....

There's no demand but everyone is asking for them.

hi Irish i have just been catching up haven|'t been on for a while and i was so sorry to read about your neighbour. Also i am lucky where i am in suffolk that we have a few really nice garden centres (small concerns ) which are still great and are as you say so willing to chat and help with your questions. I try to avoid alot of the big centres, Notcutts, Whyvales etc as to be honest the staff arent always that helpful and not the sort of people whom you can pick their brains. I had a gardening job recently to re-vamp a garden for an anniversary party and i had to supply lots of plants so i went to a smaller gardening centre to buy them and it was wonderful,the staff were polite and helpful and i wanted to help them as they helped me.

sounds like you have some good places beside you. i have checked locally , say withing 10 miles of where i live and i still cant find a nursery, just big garden centres

That's interesting Jewells - round here it's Notcutts and Hilliers that are good. But Wyevale are b****y useless. The final straw for me was "Have you got any cold frames?", response "What's a coal frame?" Enough said

Dear Irish,
I've just read up on this long and lively blog and found it interesting. I've been thinking for ages that smaller, independent ones are pleasanter certainly to browse in - not so much ridiculous tat and knickknacks/plastic trees and BBQs/pets clothes etc... I don't think it's a black and white issue though, as several people here have said. You'll need to try a few different ones out, maybe?

We live near a massive place in Wychbold that keeps trumpetting itself as the UK's favourite garden centre. I suspect they've pretty much created the title themselves just to claim it! Prices are high there, the place is bewilderingly massive, though selling so much stuff which does not belong in a GARDEN centre, service not always good, (cafe also overpriced and poor quality if u ask me) and yes, definitely they only sell you what THEY want to.
and btw, if I'd been in your situation that morning I would also have been hopping mad. I think you did the right thing.

interesting read Weeding, think most of these places create the big titles they give themselves.im still on the hunt for a decent small nursery around here

I find the big chains don't stock quality plants and alot of them seem past their best and they're still on the shelves when their close to dying. The local nursery is much better and the owner is always wandering around ready to answer all your questions. These local smaller ones tend to have the time to spend talking to you and knowledgeable - they'll require your repeat business to keep open too, so if they give bad service and advice it's not good for their future. Don't forget, if we have good service we'll tell everyone and their profits will grow, if we have bad service - bad news travels fast and before long everyone knows about it and won't go there.