On Wed, 09 Jun 2004 15:36:26 +0100, Sacha
wrote:


A nursery in Jersey was just as you describe and then did just what you
describe. They avoided going broke by the skin of their teeth but it really
was a close call. When I took my husband there on one of our visits he
nearly fainted at their prices. Jersey is a finance centre and some of the
residents are rich but even so.........one friend of ours combines a long
week end trip to England with a visit to us and takes home a (large) car
load of plants

Some of which probably started their lives in the Netherlands, judging
from the ferries full of trucks carrying plants and small trees

and still reckons he gets the best of the deal. ;-)

Our local garden centre is closing, although they grow and sell very
nice plants, they don't have enough space to stock all the crap that
makes garden centres pay. I am sure that in a year the site will be
yet another overcrowded building site.

On 10/6/04 16:36, in article ,
"martin" wrote:

On Wed, 09 Jun 2004 15:36:26 +0100, Sacha
wrote:


A nursery in Jersey was just as you describe and then did just what you
describe. They avoided going broke by the skin of their teeth but it really
was a close call. When I took my husband there on one of our visits he
nearly fainted at their prices. Jersey is a finance centre and some of the
residents are rich but even so.........one friend of ours combines a long
week end trip to England with a visit to us and takes home a (large) car
load of plants

Some of which probably started their lives in the Netherlands, judging
from the ferries full of trucks carrying plants and small trees

and still reckons he gets the best of the deal. ;-)

Our local garden centre is closing, although they grow and sell very
nice plants, they don't have enough space to stock all the crap that
makes garden centres pay. I am sure that in a year the site will be
yet another overcrowded building site.


Well, we don't stock all that stuff either but manage to make this work.
But it is firmly a nursery and not a gc. We grow much more than we buy in.
Maybe that's the economic answer.
I don't know if this has anything to do with a general wind down in public
spending but we have noticed that this year we have many, many more people
coming in with young children and babies. They can use the garden for free,
have the cup of tea or ice cream they'd have wherever they go and buy plants
if they wish to. But I'm pretty much convinced it's the 'free garden' that
does it - plenty of room for children to run about, play hide and seek and
no forking out telephone numbers for entertainment. A garden centre can't
really offer that. For the first time we've had to buy a highchair for the
tea room and will have to incorporate a nappy changing table into new loos
next year. Perhaps people are getting tired of over-priced plants and
unnecessary and expensive 'tat'.
And this year for the first time in decades the sale of vegetable seeds
outstripped flower seeds, apparently.
--

Sacha
(remove the weeds after garden to email me)