Gardening’s kept me going since I lost my wife… we need centres re-opened, says Sun legend Peter Seabrook
BORIS Johnson faces mounting pressure today to reopen garden centres in time for the May 8 Bank Holiday, the busiest gardening weekend of the year.
Bosses insist they have measures to keep customers safe and they warn millions of pounds worth of plants will die if shops remain shut any longer.
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Many centres take 50-60 per cent of their annual revenue between Easter and June – and the industry has united with Sun Gardening Correspondent Peter Seabrook to appeal to the PM.
Garden Centre Association CEO Iain Wylie told The Sun: “We’re ready to go as soon as we have permission.”
NO one knows better than me what a blessed relief it is to be out in the garden. On Good Friday I lost my wonderful wife Margaret to coronavirus after 60 years of marriage.
I quickly did what I always do when life gets tough and made myself useful in the garden. Hearing the birds sing, enjoying the spring flowers, getting physically tired — and shedding a tear — helped me enormously.
I watered and tended some bulbs. It felt good to be nurturing something growing. Life has to go on.
Gardens are something we share and nurture together as families. My dear wife loved the red campions that self-seed and grow wild in our Essex garden.
Today, as she is buried, wild campions, among other flowers from the garden, will be on her coffin.
'GARDENING HELPED ME ENORMOUSLY'
My gardening has provided much-needed solace for me at a dark time. I know, in these weeks of great sorrow, that I am far from alone.
That is why I am imploring Prime Minister Boris Johnson to please, please, please make a special case and allow garden centres and retail nurseries to open this weekend.
I ask in the interests of the physical and mental well-being of all of us as we continue to endure lockdown.
We are a nation of avid gardeners and the next few weeks are crucial if our plans are not to go to waste.
This is National Gardening Week — kicked off by Kelly Brook posing with a Union Jack-style watering can in Monday’s Sun — when we are normally out buying seeds, compost, shrubs and trees.
The months of April, May and June are the equivalent of the run-up to Christmas for the horticulture industry.
And the first May Bank Holiday, which falls next week, is critical. There are so many things to be done to set up gardens for the next nine months.
Normally it would be boom time at garden centres. Many people are short of money to buy food after losing their jobs or being furloughed, so growing their own is good for their wallets as well as their health.
Tons of fresh food can come from back gardens and allotments — as long as basic garden supplies can be obtained.
Even people living in flats with no more than window boxes and pots on balconies can grow aubergines, cucumbers and tomatoes.
Plants are being sold at supermarkets, so why can’t they be sold at garden centres?
Peter Seabrook
But where are they going to get the plants for these vegetables when garden centres are closed?
Those lucky enough to have an area of soil or raised beds can become self-sufficient in salads. But they need plants to get a flying start.
Mail-order garden retailers are currently unable to meet demand.
And do we really want to add to the number of vans on the roads making home deliveries when plants could be bought locally?
Without question, the mental and physical well-being of people kept at home is improved by getting them out into the fresh air tending to their plants. But gardens, of course, need plants in the first place.
And under lockdown rules, garden centres and nurseries are closed and millions of plants are currently standing in commercial glasshouses destined for landfill unless the log jam in distribution is quickly eased.
If these plants, with an estimated value of £200million, were laid out, they would cover an area the size of Liverpool. Overall, horticulture is worth almost £25billion to the UK economy.
There can be no doubting that isolating at home has helped reduce the spread of coronavirus. But plants are being sold at supermarkets, so why can’t they be sold at garden centres?
It just does not seem logical when supermarkets are an enclosed environment and garden centres and nurseries are often open air.
People understand the need for social distancing at supermarkets, so I am sure they will follow the rules at plant retailers, too.
DOESN'T SEEM LOGICAL
I believe the UK’s 2,000 garden centres should be allowed to open their doors for the rest of the crucial spring season. The industry is confident it can do this without putting customers and staff at risk.
Bosses say they would leave their cafes closed and that car parks would have an empty space left between vehicles.
There would be controlled entry into the centres, with a one-way walking system and tape marks on the floor to ensure there was one customer for every 1,000 sq ft of floor space.
Payments would be made by cards via machines. Staff would serve customers behind plastic screens and shopping trolleys would be disinfected regularly.
That all seems sensible and precautionary to me. The quicker the plant retailers are open, the more time gardeners will have to space out their shopping trips.
Gardeners are responsible people. They would make it work. Unlike other industries, garden centres can not hold their stock back for when lockdown ends.
Plants keep growing and will have to be dumped when they outgrow their pots. So please fling the gates to the garden centres open, Boris, and save the horticultural industry.
As I weed the soil and grieve for my beloved wife Margaret, I know exactly how therapeutic gardening can be.
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