Wyevale gone to pot!

Where to begin?!

A couple of years ago, our local independent garden centre (Podington) was bought out by the Wyevale group. I've recently been told that Wyevale is now owned by a Venture Capitalist organisation and boy doesn't it show!

Podington used to be a wonderful place. Fabulous quality plants, a broad selection of different varieties, staff who were knowledgeable, interested, interesting and committed to giving a friendly and professional service to like-minded plant and garden enthusiasts, be they amateur or more knowledgable.

Since Wyevale took over though, it has gone absolutely and completely down the pan! The plants are wretched (though the prices seem to have soared!), the staff that remain from the old Podington days seem despondent, while the new staff are automatons. The little restaurant that you used to have to queue for, even on a rainy day out of season, is now barely used, even on hot, sunny days in the summer.

At a recent visit to the Wellingborough branch, we saw a member of staff inconsequentially wafting a spray nozzle of water over one of three benches full of plants that were dried up beyond redemption, in compost that was so solid as to be more like flower-arranging foam; all marked down to half price, as if that was some kind of incentive to buy dead plants that were over-priced even when they were healthy!

Podington Garden centre used to have a complete irrigation system installed around all of the plant benches, shrub areas and tree lines. Wyevale ripped all of that out, so the plants now have to take pot luck with whatever untrained youth is left in charge of the hose for the day.

We even travelled to Huntingdon to visit a different outlet that we use from time to time there. No surprises to find that is now a Wyevale outlet too! And all the plants look the same. The selection is the same. The sky high prices are the same. The restaurant is the same soulless space as all of the other Wyevales.

Check out the Wyevale Facebook page and you'll find customer comments pretty much across the board stating that this appears to be the case throughout the Wyevale chain. We have FOUR other Wyevale garden centres within our immediate radius and it's the same story at all of them. A generic selection of plants, badly cared for, though bolstered by an endless series of "special offers" designed to make you buy stuff that you don't want in order to boost loyalty points that you can spend on more stuff that you don't want.

And even when I've queried the vertiginous drop in quality with Wyevale head office themselves, all I got was a generic, cut and paste sales pitch about wanting to make a visit to a Wyevale outlet more than just a trip to a garden centre; but to include all of the concession outlets that they have there as well and make a day of it.

And to add insult to injury, Gardeners' World magazine seems to have become little more than a glorified promotional tool for bloody Wyevale too! Every other page has a Wyevale ad or offer. The competitions on the website seem to have regular opportunities to win Wyevale vouchers. The recent gardening basics supplement was Wyevale logo'd on every page, with the back page being a full page glossy ad.

I remain thankful that Wyevale ultimately decided not to buy Dobbie's when Tesco sold it recently. Though not happy that they too appear to have been snapped up by another group of venture capitalists.

Surely there's a demand for a garden centre that sells things that gardeners want to buy rather than an endless series of multi-outlet rubbish all under one roof for a "complete shopping experience"!

It's really depressing and I wanted to get it off my chest. We'll be spending more time at Frosts and independent garden centres from now on.

Peace & Ou