Everything in the garden centre is rosy

FAMILY-RUN BUSINESS TOPS OUR ONLINE POLL FOR THIRD SUCCESSIVE YEAR

- By LYNETTE PINCHESS

MANY garden centres started off as small, family-run nurseries before blossoming into the huge attractions they are today.

But few remain in the hands of the people who opened them, with most being taken over by major companies.

One of the few, still fiercely independent nearly 50 years after it began, is Trowell Garden Centre. It’s possibly for this reason that the garden centre, in Stapleford Road, Trowell, has been topped a readers’ poll on our website, Nottinghamshire Live.

It has been crowned the best in the county for the third successive year, with Six Acres Nursery, Costock, named runner-up and Jacksdale Garden Centre in third place.

At Trowell, shoppers will find everything from chrysanthemums to pink-berried pernettya mucronata in the plant section, goldfish and pet products, beer and chocolate in the food section, jewellery, clothing and greeting cards.

With summer almost over, cut-price garden furniture is being nudged to one side by a sizeable autumnal display where a fir tree is decked out with 6,000 fairy lights, toadstools, brown and orange baubles, pumpkins, hedgehogs and squirrels.

Just around the corner is one of the first of four Christmas displays, with traditional green and red decorations and a Highland-themed teddy bears' picnic, where young visitors can sit on the bench for that all important Instagram or TikTok photo.