Garden Centres have had to compete with the large DIY stores that have sprung up on the edges of town centres and which have encroached on the traditional garden centre product ranges. Now, one can expect to find everything from greetings cards to farm shops within a garden centre and with grocery giant Tesco entering the market, through its controlling share of the Dobbie's Garden Centre chain, this trend looks set to continue.

As Gillie Westwood, Chief Executive of the Garden Centre Association, says: "Over the past 20 years the garden centre industry has progressed from just selling core gardening products to the leisure destinations they have become today. This has been due in part out of necessity as multiples, especially the DIY sheds, started cornering their traditional market but they also recognised the opportunities in expanding their ranges to sell more products related to the home and garden.

"The biggest growth area was and still is cafes and restaurants. What would have started as a small tea room has now, in most cases, become a full blown restaurant offering all day dining. Huge investment has been made in garden centre buildings so now the whole ambience has changed making the shopping experience more pleasurable."

But how will the independent garden sector continue to compete with the likes of Tescos? Last month Dobbies announced it has set itself a target of operating 100 stores across the UK in a few years' time, from 23 now. This huge expansion will undoubtedly have an impact on the industry and the products it stocks.

Gillie Westwood argues: "There is no doubt Tesco will win on price but the independents will be able to compete by being versatile and responding to change quickly," she says. "As the Tesco and Wyevale empires grow, which they inevitably will, the concern would be that garden centres could eventually look the same and sell the same products, just as multiples do in the high streets country wide.

"There will always be a place for the independent retailer; not all shoppers are dictated by price and it's often the very fact that they are different and independent that they will continue to shop there."

There are some who argue that the best way forward might be to go back to being specialised gardening stores, stocking only those products that would appeal to the purists. However, Gillian Westwood believes this is unlikely to work. "I believe garden centres will continue to be diversified retail outlets; only planning restrictions could stop further development. I seriously doubt anyone entering the industry now would survive as a specialist garden centre just concentrating on a particular aspect of the gardening industry; customer expectations are very different now," she says.

Whatever the future holds for the garden centre industry in terms of product offering there is one factor that will remain predictably the same - the great British weather. Even a giant like Dobbies suffered last year when the UK endured one of the most miserable summers in living memory. Trade of garden furniture, plants and other gardening products was hit by heavy rain last summer, even though a warm spring boosted sales earlier in the year, and profits fell by almost 12 per cent. The good news is that initial signs for this summer are looking a lot more optimistic.

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