Just been down the garden centre

Something new has appeared

 

Lovely!

Not having been before, I can't tell the new from the old

 

Girt glass house, was just a shed before

 

Ooooooh, I say: luvly!!!

 

Is the new Groves building and will it affect their other sales areas during construction? (Might be about that way in a couple of weeks).

 

It is Scrunge

Business as usual, it's at the back where the greenhouse spares hut used to be

 

Looking at their new business plan, it could be goodbye to a traditional independent garden centre, and hello Wyevale clone, with emphasis on restuarant sales, overpriced foods/preserves/tacky gifts/shawls/novelties/tat, and the staff/customers will now look at you distainfully when you wander in wearing grubby trousers and muddy boots to buy a new handle for your lugworm digging fork.

People like myself, who don't want to spend anything at garden centres are being priced out.

 

They didn't bat an eyelid when I turned up earlier dressed as St. Francis of Assisi and spent 95p on onion sets

 

Agree , when a nursery upgrades and gets a new flashy sales area and a cafe/restaurant . They suddenly become a garden centre , and sales and care of plants becomes third choice. Prices go up 25% as well.

 

I could write a book on garden centres! We were surrounded by them where we used to live and indeed I sold my old house to the owner of the biggest 1 who then sold out to Dobbies for the small sum of £7,000,000. The owner knew f all and cared less about anything horticultural only being interested in the "bottom line" and proceeded to completely destroy nearly an acre of garden I had created to make a football pitch for his wee boy. Be under no illusions the vast majority of garden centres, chains especially, should be renamed as garden supermarkets who stock pretty much the same things which predominately come from Holland. The staff in supermarkets are usually clueless about food, likewise the majority of garden centre staff couldn't tell you the difference between a Daffodil and a Dandy-lion unfortunately.
Part of the reason I decided to learn about plants myself was after I realised what I had been told on a visit to a garden centre was a complete load of bull you know what.

 

Yes, and they have carpets in their sales areas

 

We have a local independent GC near us which, over the six years we have lived here, has expanded five fold- the cafe area that is!!! just like the large sheds, they know where the profits are, food.

Haven't been to Groves for years but often drive passed.

 

No, they legally couldn't