When did you last go to church on a Sunday?  And when did you last go to a garden centre?*

For increasing numbers of us, the second question yields a much more recent date than the first.  All over Britain, garden centres have supplanted churches as Sunday places of pilgrimage.  The colossal Webbs of Wychbold, near Droitwich in Worcestershire, even has its own big brown sign on the M5, as if it were a great medieval cathedral.  

Besides, while the Lord might still be our shepherd, He cannot sell us a David Austin rose.  Or a full set of luggage or a multi-fuel stove, if Hereford (Wyevale) Garden Centre, the former nursery which grew like topsy, and from which bloomed the vast Garden Centre Group, is anything to go by.

At Hereford Garden Centre one recent bank holiday afternoon, I whiled away two contented hours with my wife and parents-in-law. It could, in truth, have been four contented hours.  The tropical fish section alone would grace just about any aquarium in the world, and if you think that a Lawnmower Blenny might be an attachment for your Flymo, then think again.  It's a blunt-headed algae-eater, which at Hereford Garden Centre lives in a tank next to the Crowntail Siamese Fighters.  If Harry Williamson is looking down from the celestial greenhouse, it must be with a mixture of pride and astonishment at what his vision has become.

Williamson was a Herefordshire plantsman, who in 1932 established a five-acre site selling bare-rooted stock, which could only be sold in the dormant autumn and winter.  Then, on a trip to the US, he saw plans being sold in containers packed with soil, regardless of the season.  It was a ground breaking moment. 

Williamson returned to Hereford and, using unwanted tins from a nearby jam factory, started selling container-grown plants all year round.  He called his rapidly expanding nursery Wyevale, took out advertisements boasting of a million plants on 100 acres, and with others following his enterprising example, an industry was born.

However, it wasn't until the Sixties, with the mass production of inexpensive polythene plant pots, together with an increase in disposable income and growing interesting in ornamental gardening, that the industry really started to take shape as the monolith it is today, with annual sales estimated at more than £5 billion.

That figure owes a good deal to the remarkable burst of diversification that has occurred over the past decade or so.  The biggest garden centres are now more like department stores; indeed, I went to Hereford for some compost and came home with a new suitcase, which I could, had I so wished, have filled with candles, crockery or event jewellery.

Even if I'd focused only on outdoors ephemera, I could have bought anything from a headstone for a dead pet, to a solar-powered blue tit.  And when we were all browsed out, it was time to eat.  We had an excellent lunch in a cafe which claims true pioneering status.   It opened in 1971, apparently making Wyevale the first garden centre in Britain to offer sit-down meals.

As garden centres have continued their inexorable growth, though, what of the diminishing significance of the word 'garden'?

Plants now account for only a fraction of nationwide sales.  In fact at the last estimate it was 19%, compared with the 21 % of takings that come from cafes and coffee shops, to say nothing of the Michelin starred restaurant at Petersham Nurseries in south west London. 

'To use, that is complete anathema', said Mike Burks, who owns three garden centres in the westcountry.  Burks, a horticulture graduate from Bath University, started Castle Gardens in the grounds of Sherborne Castle in 1987, and with his wife, Louise, has turned it from virtual dereliction into a thriving concern.  But he has ensured that plants remain the core of the business.  'Which makes it quite tough in the weather conditions we've had recently,' he told me, 'although we're not hugely affected by the recession, at least.  We're still a cheap day out.  And as more people foresake a second holiday, they spend more time in their gardens.'

 For all his admirable determination to keep plants to the fore, Burks has had to tilt with the times.  He and his 140 staff pay lavish attention in their Christmas displays, for if visiting garden centres has become a new national religion, then that is never truer than over the festive season.  

The high street used to be the place to buy baubles, and take little John and Jane to see Santa in his grotto, but now it tends to be the garden centre.  Habits change.  After all, it's not little John and Jane any more, but Jasper and Jade.  And for their parents, a decent garden centre serves all Christmas shopping requirements.

'That's where I go every year,' said a friend of mind.  'A fleece for my father-in-law, a potted orchid for my mother-in-law. Job done.'

For Burks, there is an ulterior motive behind the lavish Christmas displays, the surge in takings helping him to keep his highly qualified plantsmen and women on board over the winter.  He might  have a horticulturalist's hands, but he has an economist's eye, telling his staff to look out for anyone with a full basket or trolley, and cheerfully offer to park it for them, giving them an empty one. 

It's a simple ethos; a customer with a full trolley can't buy any more.  'There was a survey of a garden-centre chain in the US,' he told me, 'and it turned out that the most successful employee, the one whose sales record was double that of anyone else, was a Haitian who spoke no English.  All he did was hand people empty baskets.

As for those of us on the other side of the till, it is not just to fill up our flower beds that we seek out a good garden centre.  The best of them engage with the community.  

At Castle Gardens, there are Pilates classes and even calligraphy.   And at the mammoth Wentworth Garden Centre, near Rotherham, so big that there are marshals in the car park, my parents-in-law attended a Forties evening featuring a male choir and a pie-and-peas supper.  One can only hope the ghost of Harry Williamson was singing along to some familiar tunes.

Topical Tips for good shopping in 

a garden centre

Tips for Customers

1. Be sure to buy hardy plants with a guarantee.
2. There should always be someone on hand with real horticultural expertise.  Ash their advice.  It's free!
3. Stop for a sup of tea and a slice of cake.  The quality of catering at most good garden centres is excellent.
4. If you're buying presents, ask for the gift-wrapping service.  Again, most good garden centres offer it.
5. Don't just go there to buy.  Check out the events.  Use it at you might a village hall.

Tips for Retailers

1. Make sure there's an obvious flow taking customers past all the products.
2. Identify 'hot spots', sites that are particularly good for selling stock.
3. Keep everything looking fresh.  ~Throw away tired stock, and keep the paths swept.
4. Make sure there are plenty of friendly staff available, at all times.
5. Have lots of baskets and trolleys on hand.  And if people fill them, give them an empty one!

* (from an article in the Telegraph by Brian Viner)

Our local garden centre here in Paignton has been closed, to make way for a dual carriageway unfortunately.  So am now looking for another one near here.  The choices seem to be:

http://www.pottingshednursery.co.uk/contact.asp

http://www.stylesgardencentre.co.uk/

http://www.otternurseries.co.uk/maps-torquay.html

http://www.englishriviera.co.uk/things-to-do/plant-world-gardens-p1417233

http://www.yell.com/b/Plant+World-Garden+Centres-Newton+Abbot-TQ124SE-4499720/?view=map

http://www.yell.com/b/Jacks+Patch+Nursery+and+Garden+Centre-Garden+Centres-Teignmouth-TQ149PN-6025638/?view=map

http://www.yell.com/b/Fermoy's+Garden+Centre+and+Farm+Shop+Ltd-Garden+Centres-Newton+Abbot-TQ125TN-76864/?view=map

http://www.trago.co.uk/gardens--pets-9-c.asp

Ideas on how to make more of your garden, from IKEA: http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/categories/departments/outdoor/?cid=gb%3Eps%3E%3EOutdoor+Living+Generic+Garden+Ideas+-+Exact%3Ego%3Egardens%20designs%3Emckv%3Eshzg7rOcV%3Epcrid%3E30276255342#