DESPITE the proven benefits gardening brings to people’s mental health, particularly now with the community confined to home, garden centres in Fermanagh are still not allowed to open.
Thankfully, one local centre has this week began a home delivery service, much to the delight of many.
Scott Robinson from Craigville Garden Centre told the Herald said that while the delivery service may not make any money for his business, he was happy to be bringing plants to his customers, many of whom had been asking for them to open.
“People had been asking if we had a click and collect service, but we have around 5,000 plants here and that just wouldn’t be possible,” he said. “Plus, if we’re click and collecting, as they call it, we’re only bringing people out of the house, so we’d only be doing the wrong thing. That’s why we’re going to deliver, they can pay over the phone, we’ll drop it at the door, they won’t even see it because we’ll leave it at the house.”
Mr Robinson said they had done a few test deliveries over the weekend and people had been very grateful.
Pointing out that garden centres just miles across the border in the South were allowed to open, after the government decided it was beneficial to the public’s mental health, Mr Robinson said he felt it was unfair some other shops, such as DIY stores, were allowed to open and supermarkets such as Asda and Tesco were allowed to sell plants outside.
He said the garden centre was missing out on its busiest time of year, with thousands of plants “growing over” at the closed centre. Mr Robinson said he hoped common sense would prevail and he would eventually be allowed to open, adding if they were allowed to open strict safety measures would be enforced at the centre.
“People are looking for small bits, and at the minute I’m just happy to be able to deliver it to them,” he said. “It’s not making me money, but it will get rid of a bit of stock and allow us to bring in summer bedding and fresh stock.”
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