NEIL TWEEDIE: Gardeners give their joyous verdict as nation’s garden centres reopen

You know you are living in strange times when buying a bag of compost feels like a treat.

Gareth Bressington could hardly contain himself as he loaded a sack on to his trolley at the Studley Green Garden Centre. ‘It’s for my partner’s mother,’ he explained. ‘She’s self-isolating.’

The simple gesture gratified him. A trip of this kind has, of course, been impossible for weeks. His face covered, Mr Bressington, 50, was one of the early birds at the centre yesterday as it opened for the first time since late March.

Others were waiting with him for the gates to swing open at 9am. Terry Warmbier had also come in search of compost. ‘I’ve been going stir-crazy since [the lockdown] started,’ explained Mr Warmbier, 64, a sales manager in the chemicals industry. ‘Four trips to the supermarket and that’s been it.’

It was easy to see why the shoppers were so delighted to be there: A dazzling array of plants had been displayed at Studley Green yesterday to dispel the grey skies and the even greyer national mood.

Amid a riot of purple, pink, red and gold, plants of every possible hue shone from the shelves. Magnolias, camelias and hellebores brought a quiet contentment – even if the centre’s cafe remained closed.

Similar scenes were repeated across the country yesterday, with queues reported at several garden centres. One in Kent had even installed heat sensors to detect anyone who might be running a temperature.

Inside Studley Green, things were not quite as they usually are. Customers were directed towards hand sanitiser and reminded of the two-metre rule. No more than two people per household were allowed in and no dogs except guide dogs. Signs indicated where to queue and at what distance.

Even so, as the customers arrived, Colin Campbell-Preston, joint owner of the centre in Buckinghamshire’s Chiltern Hills, looked on with satisfaction.

‘At least a year’s profit has gone down the Swanee – and maybe two,’ he said. ‘It’s a huge relief to be starting up again. We must hope that we can repair some of the damage in the next few weeks. Let’s pray for good weather.’

Mr Campbell-Preston had calculated that no more than 20 customers could be accommodated safely at any time. But he was prepared to reduce that number if it compromised social distancing.

‘We will be employing this regime for the rest of the year, I imagine,’ he said. ‘But we have sensible people working here and I’m sure we can make it work.’

The easing of the lockdown, announced by the Prime Minister last weekend, could not have come sooner for British horticulture, which has suffered terribly.

For owners of garden centres and plant nurseries, 2020 will be remembered as the year that failed to bloom – at least economically.

They have been hit by a financial storm the like of which has never been seen, with some 2,000 centres and nurseries closed for weeks and millions of plants left to rot.

‘Everyone has taken a hell of a hit, but we will come through it,’ says Mr Campbell-Preston. ‘Our suppliers are hurting. We have paid them what we can, but we have had to put our own staff first. If we had to stay in lockdown until June we would have been in serious trouble, even with the furlough scheme.’

Around him, staff sported protective wear – masks, scarves and, on the checkout, plastic visors.

Immense damage has been done in a few short weeks. Spring is to garden centres and nurseries what Christmas is to the high street.

‘Peak week in gardening is the first week of May,’ says James Barnes, chairman of the Horticultural Trades Association.

‘At the beginning of April, we had 500 million bedding plants sitting on the ground with no one to buy them – that’s enough to cover a city the size of Liverpool.

‘Primulas have gone until next year. Primroses, the early crop of pansies, violas and daffodils, they have been piled up in mountains.’ Because of uncertainty and a lack of cash flow, growers have held off planting later crops, resulting in possible shortages of summer bedding plants like petunias, lobelia, geraniums and marigolds.

Mr Barnes cites an HTA survey that revealed 30 per cent of companies warned they were at risk of insolvency by the end of this year. Now the HTA is lobbying the Government for a proper bailout. Mr Campbell-Preston gains comfort from the fact that this crisis has not been of his own making.

He says: ‘If you are a grower you have not been able to furlough. You have to look after the plants – you can’t just walk away.

‘It’s not like a car showroom where you can lock the door and send everyone home. Bedding-plant suppliers have carried a huge risk – when do they get their workers in to start supplying again? It takes six weeks to grow a crop, so they have to look into the future and guess.’

He has also been truly pained by the sight of supermarkets selling plants while garden centres have been shuttered. ‘It would be gracious of the supermarkets to refrain from horticulture for a year to help us. After all, they weren’t closed down and we were.’

Does he think they might do that, as a gesture of solidarity? ‘No, not a chance.’

And he has one criticism of the Government – its failure to recognise that businesses are the best judges of safety on their premises.

‘I think we had to close because everyone was so confused and frightened,’ he says. ‘But we could have opened up sooner and been trusted more.’

Outside, among the shrubs and Grecian statues, the customers at Studley Green arrived in steady but not overwhelming numbers. Matthew Parker and his mother Linda Ridgley were stocking up on climbing and trailing plants.

‘Thank God for normality,’ said Mr Parker. ‘It’s so good for mental health – to be around beautiful plants in the open air,’ added Mrs Ridgley.

‘I don’t know why garden centres couldn’t have opened earlier – you can do social distancing a lot more easily here than in a supermarket.’

Jenny Flynn, 77, was hunting for perennials. ‘I’ve been out only to walk the dog,’ she said. ‘A relief. Yes, it’s a relief.’