Garden Centres

If all else fails, and I find myself away from home and caught in a deluge, a Garden Centre is an ideal place, not just to shelter, but to pass the time. The early Garden Centres were more akin to today’s Garden Nurseries, which is where serious gardeners in search of compost or plants are far better off. The oldest Garden Centre in operation since 1742, is Stewarts in Dorset.

This would not suit me as my enjoyment of a Garden Centre, is not based on the quality, price or range of plants and flowers on display. My criteria are calculated on the manner of other entertainments on offer. Rather like cruise ships, these vast garden centres, spread over many acres, have become destinations in themselves: a horticultural gardenopolis, as our local garden centre demonstrates, with its annexed entertainment area offering cinema, ten pin bowling, crazy golf and even a Curling arena. None of which has enticed me to try these out on account of the outrageous prices.

No, I eschew these dubious enticements for the Garden Centre proper, wandering through the doors and feeling the essence of the place. The various sections are conveniently set out in sections where I can wander around looking at interesting stuff such as different types of Wellingtons, and clothing for cold, hot, or rainy days. Not for you? Then move on to marvel at the various barbecue equipment that needs a garden the size of a small public park (and public crowd) to justify the size and expense. Among these are all manner of Hot Tubs, garden chairs and cushions.

For the aromatically challenged, there are a few hundred different scents to accompany an array of diffusers to choose from. The better Garden Centres may also have a dedicated kitchenware section - and to go on the plates and gadgets that you don’t need and will never see the light of day from the back of the cupboard, is the farm shop. Of course there are some gardening items to be had – once you’ve woven your way through the bird houses, sacks of bird food for birds that seem to require a more varied diet than I have.

Eventually you may come to a corner with topsoil, spades, bulbs, seeds – weedkiller. Weedkiller, in all its poisonous unnatural forms are required for those pernicious flowers, such as dandelions, that spring up wherever they are unwanted (this being the definition of a weed) despite the discouragement of the avid gardener. I like dandelions. These sunny little flowers originated in Eurasia, but over the centuries have spread to many other parts of the world – and hated by some who want only grass in their lawns. Little do many gardeners who hanker after a billiard smooth lawn unmarred by a single sunny dandelion know, is that if you mow dandelions, they grow shorter stalks just to spite you.

Up until the 1800s people would pull grass out of their lawns to make room for dandelions and other useful “weeds” like chickweed, malva, and chamomile. We should therefore cultivate dandelions; after all, they have one of the longest flowering seasons of any plant. Millions could be saved on buying lawn pesticides, incidentally also saving up to 30% of the country’s water supply it takes to keep lawns green.

Slugs are another matter, a gardener’s nightmare. Overnight, once pristine flower beds are destroyed by a battalion of impervious killers. With their greyish brownish greenish slimy skin, they will have torpedoed their way through the undergrowth, their 27,000 teeth making short work of prize hostas.

While you won’t find dandelion seeds in Garden Centres, as you eventually approach the final stretch to the tills, you will find plenty of greeting cards, books no self-respecting bookshop would stock, and perhaps a teddy bear or pens and pencils. Then it’s a stroll outside (but still under cover) to the best bit, to look in wonder at some of the worst concrete cast statuary in the history of the modern world.

However, by far the most important measure of the quality of a Garden Centre is to be found away from all these objects for sale. This will be the Café or, if a superior establishment and you have some money left after all your purchases, the Restaurant. This is a proper and just reward for all that walking up and down a maze of aisles. This is the heart of the Centre, and if found wanting, then the whole place fails and nothing will entice me to return. When they are good, they are very good. But when they are poor, they are truly horrid. Here I recall the misguided Garden Centre that tried to pass off stale scones from Morrisons as ‘home-made’ adding further insult with a plastic pocket of smooth red shiny goo masquerading as jam, but which has never seen a strawberry.

A garden centre visitor faces a dilemma and interrogation by servers in the café

Coffee?
Americano, Cappuccino, Latte, Flat or Macchiato?
Brazilian, Columbian, Venezualan? With or without caffeine?
Nescafe? I don’t think so…

Tea?
White, green, or black?
Breakfast, Afternoon, Earl grey.
Builders? I don’t think so…

Or perhaps
Camomile, peppermint, jasmine?
Or lemon, hibiscus, ginger, or raspberry?
We are in a garden centre after all.

With milk?
Fresh whole, skimmed or semi?
Almond, oat, pistachio, soya?
Goat? I don’t think so…

Something to go with it?
What do we have?
Now you’re asking…
We are a garden centre after all.

In cakes, we have Victoria, Red Velvet,
Coffee and Walnut, Chocolate.
Lemon drizzle?
It’s very popular – we’re out of that one…

For vegans we have
Beetroot, Carrot and banana
And a nice extra green Courgette.
We are a garden centre after all.

Then there’s Flapjack, Chocolate Brownie,
Shortbread - Millionaire or ordinary,
Apple pie and Manchester tart.
Gluten free? I don’t think so…

We have scones –
Your choice of plain, with sultanas or cherries.
With butter, jam, or cream.
All? I suppose… we are a garden centre after all.

So that’s….
One hot chocolate, with cream.
One mineral water… fizzy, with ice.
That’s all? We are a garden centre you know ….

Yvonne Smallshaw.