Garden centres in the Eighties

The garden centre of the 80’s varied greatly from town to town but they all had one obvious key obvious element; they all stocked plants. Everything else tended to vary from garden centre to garden centre. Some had small sheds that housed a collection of chemical and the odd tool, some stocked a little paving, others some pond products. Very few had a coffee shop or restaurant. Apart from one or two large garden centres this meant that each garden centre tended to specialise is something. One might be famous for its pond section another for its tree collection and so on.
Far from being the almost social gathering place that many garden centres now are, most garden centres were places that you visited when you needed something. You went there to buy your hedging or fruit trees. You called to get the chemicals you needed to spray your roses or the hose to water your plant. Gardens meant work.
Gardening wasn’t sexy, like it was to become in the late nineties and noughties, which meant that garden centres were far from the in places to visit or be seen in. Younger people avoided them; gardening was something your parents and grand parents did. I can remember being almost embarrassed telling people where I worked, as a career in horticulture had, dare I say it, a certain “sissy” quality to it that it has thankfully lost!