according to a bloke in B&Q he said it was to do with Brexit. any excuse!
but yes much more expensive than last year.

I've not bought mine yet, but all seem much same price as last year in likes of Lidl, Asda etc. Not checked DIY sheds, but I usually buy on a whim as I see something

At a stretch you could blame the exchange rate + Brexit for imported Dutch ones, but more likely linked to parent company of B & Q falling profits
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-28/kingfisher-b-q-should-ditch-veronique-laury-strategy-try-breakup

I'm not surprised, bedding plants are definitely overpriced, but I found that if I wait a little while, May or so they want to push out their inventory and I can usually find some pretty good bargains. Places like DIY and The Home Depot & Lowes here in the US usually offer great bargains later in the season. I also started growing my own bedding plants from seeds but you gotta start those indoors in February. Then it's just pennies per plant but you can have those hard to find rare plants nobody else could find.

I haven;t looked yet - I don't buy much bedding anyway, and what I do get I usually acquire from the so called 'geranium bloke' at the end of my Lane - he sets up there for 6 weeks from around mid to end of April just selling bedding - will be interested to see what the prices are this year. We've had frost the last two nights with another for tonight anyway...

I think the price of seeds from a site in the UK have also gone up a lot. The trick is to buy on days when the £ - € or £ - $ is favorable. I wasn't able to place an order with Exbury Nerines until yesterday, after the Brexit date was extended beyond their shipping date (£140 for a phyto certificate!).

Potting compost seems to have gone up a lot as well.

I also think everything has gone up, was at a GC only last week and thought some of the prices were very steep, the supermarkets not too bad though, even hubby has stated my new bag of compost bought only yesterday had gone up by nearly £2 a bag..

Try going to boot fairs. I've found there are always a few stalls selling plants at very reasonable prices.