Like a garden center over 70 years, bloomed

One of the early garden centers of the UK celebrates for 70 years as a family business in which the owner fell in love and married in his first employee.

“Roger always picked me up and brought me to the market every day. We gradually loved each other,” recalled Hazel Aylett, now 88.

The gardening student Roger Ayett founded in 1955 in St. Albans, Hertfordshire, in St. Albans, Hertfordshire, as “here was nothing more than a green field”.

“There was no garden center, they were not invented at the time. In the past, we sold our Dahlias grapes and said the people:” Why can't they sell us anything else? “And that's how it all started,” said Ms. Aylett.

Mr. Aylett died in 2010, but his daughter and son -in -law Julie and Adam Wigglesworth continue to manage business.

They are now concerned with 150 people, but Ms. Aylett said that the early days were very different.

“I was Roger's first student when I was 18 years old and he paid me 1 pound a week,” she said.

“Roger could not afford any employees – why was I sent here (from college) if it wasn't in the stars that I would fall in love with this man?

“In the past we grown sweet peas and dolphinia for the cut Flower trade, but we spent the first 15 years of losing money. The bank manager asked my mother -in -law to get rid of kindergarten because it was such an outflow.”

Ms. Wigglesworth said that in the late 1960s there was a turning point when another gardening team “came up with the idea of ​​bringing plants to pots”.

“Before that, they could only do it as a mere root stock – it was very seasonal.

“As soon as this idea of ​​containerization started, plants could be bought and it really started,” she said.

Mr. Aylett, who described Mr. Wigglesworth as an “absolute character”, also performed the company with his passion and personality.

“He loved to grow a good work and a good harvest. He built up the customer service business, Roger was always in the workshop,” he said.

Mr. Wigglesworth said the center, which recently added hundreds of solar collectors to supply 30% of his operations with electricity, often developed with new technologies.

“We were the country's first garden center to have barcodes,” he said.

“In the 70s we had an environmental system to manage the greenhouse – now you get it on your phone, but Roger did it decades ago.”

The kindergarten teacher Tony Day recently celebrated 50 years at Aylett after starting his first job there at the age of 16.

“As a kindergarten teacher, I came here in a team of about 15 people and learned everything and everyone,” he said.

“My philosophy is to make sure that I grow well and can make sure that it will be better in the next season.

“I don't think I would have been here if I would not appreciate the Ayetts as a family. It helps to be appreciated in your job.”

Mr. Day has come and go garden trends.

“When I started, there were many of the gardeners, the Dahlias, Chrysanthemums, who loved old -fashioned plants,” he said.

“The gardens were bigger at the time. Now they get more terraces and small gardens.

“The trends have changed from large lawns with decorative borders to smaller terrace gardens. People love containers, smaller flowering plants on their grill stalls.”

Ms. Wigglesworth admitted that garden centers were today “enormous challenges”.

“We have climate change, plant health, peat problems and when the world gets smaller – they know what diseases,” she said.

Mr. Wigglesworth said positively: “People are just as interested in nature as ever”.

“Garden centers have a rosy future. We have an absolute experience,” he added.

Ms. Aylett, who lives on the website, said the memory of her husband continued.

“We miss Roger every day, he was the leading light behind it,” she said.

“As a family business, it is important to continue, but I don't know what the future ends.”