Garden Centres and Nurseries
Choosing Your Garden Centre or Nursery
It's always worth visiting a number of local Garden Centres and Nurseries before spending much money.
You will find that some have a much more attractive ambience than others, though what attracts one gardener may be very different from what attracts another.
First you need to locate possible places within your locality. You can visit them and make notes about what are their strengths and weaknesses. Of particular interest to note down are:
- The range of healthy looking plants on offer
- The helpfulness of the staff
- The general level of price
You are likely to find considerable variation in all of the above
Sources of Advice on Garden Centres
There are a number of sources for locating Garden Centres around where you live or anywhere else where you might be, for example when on holiday.
Useful sources of information include:
- Garden Centre Association
This organisation aims to encourage a high level of good business practice amongst its members. To ensure members of the association maintain their high standards, they are inspected on an annual basis.
Their website has a simple member (garden centre) search facility. You can search by name if you know of a specific garden centre or nursery you would like to visit. Alternatively, you can enter a county for a list of all the members in that area. - Garden Centre Guide
Here you can enter a town, city or county and obtain a list of local garden centres. Clicking one of the entries displays the location and contact information with a few other details and possibly reviews. - The Independent Newspaper has published its choice of the Top 50 Garden Centres in the UK
Each garden centre or nursery is presented as a picture with accompanying description of what is distinctive about it and its location.
You can browse by selecting each thumbnail in turn or you can hover over each thumbnail to display a tool-tip that may help you decide if you want to view the full description. - Royal Horticultural Society
Finally, the Royal Horticultural Society has published its own Guidelines for Buying from Garden Centres
Garden Centre Chains or Independents
It's interesting that having conducted a survey of Garden Centres in the UK, the Consumers Association came to the conclusion that you are more likely to find good service and quality products at Independent Garden Centres rather than national chains of Garden Centres, which includes those attached to supermarkets and DIY stores.
Having made the general comment, they went on to say that if you know what you are looking for and don't need the professional advice that is available at better Garden Centres and Nurseries, you may be able to bag a bargain from one of the larger chains.
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