Garden centres risk having to dump 200million plants if they don’t re-open soon, nurseries warn

Ministers are under growing pressure to allow garden centres to open immediately amid warnings the lockdown will force nurseries to dump 200 million unsold plants and hand rival European firms a major advantage.

Former Tory Environment Secretary Theresa Villiers said it was illogical to allow supermarket chains to sell plants and flowers, but not garden centres and nurseries.

She writes in today’s Mail on Sunday, below, that the Government ‘should feel able to allow nurseries and garden centres to reopen’ because they would ‘find it easier to comply with social distancing than other shops because of their larger footprint, much of it outdoors’.

A poll for this newspaper also showed strong public support for reopening garden centres before other retailers after TV gardener Alan Titchmarsh – writing in the MoS – and a panel of scientific and economic experts last weekend backed the plan.

The Deltapoll survey found 56 per cent of people support the opening of garden centres, compared with 35 per cent who are opposed.

By contrast, only 26 per cent support the opening of cafes, falling to 21 per cent for restaurants and just 16 per cent for pubs.

Plant growers revealed they had begun dumping hundreds of millions of plants on compost heaps after missing out on sales on Mother’s Day weekend and the Easter weekend. The busiest week of the year normally starts tomorrow when garden centres start stocking up for the May bank holidays.

One of the UK’s biggest suppliers to nurseries, who estimated 200 million plants in total had been lost, warned the lockdown had begun to threaten the future of 3,000 nurseries across the country, as they will not be able to make up for the losses later in the year.

Sandy Shepherd, owner of Oxfordshire plant producer Ball Colegrave, said widescale collapse would produce a gap in the market for firms in Germany and Holland, where garden centres have stayed open.

He warned that Dutch rivals could make exporting to the UK profitable by mass producing a different variety of plants than the UK market normally sees.

‘If a huge number of British nurseries fall out of the market, the gap will be filled up by the big European suppliers, which will not have the same diversity of plants as the British garden centres,’ he said.

‘I have huge respect for my Dutch colleagues, but they don’t have the range you need for the UK. With mass importing, we will still have plants in our gardens, but in ten or 15 years time our gardens will look different. We need to keep the diversity of this industry.’

He said Ball Colegrave – which supplies around half of the young plants in Britain to growers – has alone had to scrap 90 million plants, worth £9 million.

‘To see our products wasting away like this is unbelievable,’ he said. ‘We’re just watching those plants die. It’s heartbreaking.’

Natalie Porter of Happy Plants nursery on Merseyside said she would normally make £1 million of her £4 million annual takings in May. She makes £3 million during the industry’s key selling season between March and June.

She said: ‘Next week is normally our busiest week, we work flat out and normally do about £250,000 of business. May is the golden month for our industry.

‘We planned and planted our plants around Christmas time, so the investment was already made before the virus case was reported in Wuhan. There was no way we could have known. But you can’t pause plants. These plants have a very short shelf life – if you don’t sell them when they’re ready, there’s nothing you can do.

‘So almost every single nursery is in extreme danger right now. She warned customers could experience shortages of bedding plants such as busy lizzies, marigolds and lobelia, because these are the varieties that must be sold as soon as they are ready.

‘We are already seeing shortages,’ she said. ‘The busy lizzies will be scarce this year, and possibly for years to come, because nearly all bedding plant suppliers are at risk of folding, and gardens will be a lot less colourful.’

Garden centres have never closed in Holland despite the virus crisis. And they were some of the first premises to reopen in Germany and Switzerland.

Deltapoll interviewed 1,518 UK adults online between April 23 and 24. The data has been weighted to be representative of the British adult population as a whole.

THERESA VILLIERS: I agree with Alan Titchmarsh, we should re-open garden centres to improve our nation’s health

By Theresa Villiers for the Mail on Sunday

A week ago, Alan Titchmarsh issued a call to arms in this newspaper for garden centres to reopen. As a former Environment Secretary, I agree.

The Covid-19 lockdown has made us all aware of the value of spending time outdoors. 

When I was Environment Secretary, I was briefed on research which confirms that getting out into green spaces and natural environments yields significant benefits for both mental and physical health.

So I have argued strongly against closing parks or further restricting the freedom to go out for exercise, so families who don’t have gardens aren’t condemned to stay indoors, stuck in their homes for the duration of what could be a long emergency.

For people lucky enough to live in a home which does have outdoor space, I am sure their garden has made it easier to endure the restrictions which are so vital to protect the NHS and save lives.

There are several reasons why the Government should feel able to allow nurseries and garden centres to reopen. 

If supermarkets can facilitate social distancing within their stores, so can garden centres, by applying the same kind of restrictions on maximum numbers allowed in at any one time.

Indeed many garden centres would find it easier to comply with social distancing than other shops because of their larger footprint, much of it outdoors. 

Moreover, if a supermarket chain can continue to sell plants and gardening supplies, it seems unfair that garden centres and nurseries (many of which are small, independently run businesses) cannot.

It also seems harsh that DIY stores are permitted to open for click-and-collect trade when garden centres are not. 

If people are permitted to shop for supplies to sort out jobs and repairs around the home, why can’t they do that to pick up the plants and equipment they need to keep their garden flourishing?

While my own gardening efforts are very rudimentary, even I know that spring and early summer is a crucial time for gardeners. April to June is the equivalent of Christmas for horticultural retailers. 

If they cannot open up soon, hundreds of millions of pounds worth of seasonal plants may have to be binned and thousands of family-run businesses could go to the wall.

If you are asking people to stay at home for a long time, then give them something to do. 

As Alan Titchmarsh said in his article, the bedding plants in danger of perishing unsold ‘with their brilliant flowers, raise our spirits as well as feeding butterflies and bees. They let Britain bloom…’

As this lockdown grinds on, we need ways to boost people’s morale. Allowing them to buy the blooms they need to brighten their gardens is a good way to do this without hindering our great national endeavour to fight the virus and save lives.

Levels of compliance with social distancing rules have been far higher than the experts predicted. The people of this nation have risen to the challenge and made drastic changes in order to protect the vulnerable. 

That commitment will not be diluted if the Government were to throw a lifeline to garden centres and nurseries.