Garden centres all over the island were finally allowed to re-open their doors last week, allowing the public through their doors for the first time in almost seven weeks.

From Monday last week, gardeners flocked to their favourite local centre, after a long period of unbroken sunshine had left people eager to improve their gardens and give their own outdoor spaces a bit of care and attention, writes Mike Wade.

Most garden centres said that they were busy from the second they opened their doors, and each one has introduced their own social distancing measures, which ranged from simple appeals for the public to observe the two-metre rule as they wander through the smaller centres, through to carefully managed one-way systems and separate entrances and exits at the larger ones.

Kirby Garden Centre, in Douglas, has created a new entrance at the rear of the car park to create a one-way system, along with a new outdoor payment area to try to keep the lengths of the queues down.

Jackie Fletcher, from the centre, said demand was so great that they have had to manage the amount of people they allow into the centre at any one time.

’It’s been very hectic, very busy since reopening,’ said Jackie. ’We have almost been overwhelmed over the first couple of days with the number of customers who have come in. We had to close the gates every now and then as we were full up inside and people wanted to properly observe the social distancing measures.

’This is our busiest time of year from April and May onwards and when everyone wants to start getting out in their gardens and working on them.

’With people having to self isolate, it has been good for people to be able to do things like garden and look after pots at home.’

Jason Evans, from Ramsey Garden Centre, said that his customers were happy to comply with the restrictions.

’We put our own restrictions in and that seemed to work fine,’ he said.

’Everyone just seemed happy to be able to come back into the shop. The one way system and the two-metre gaps are all working well and we’ve had no complaints from anyone.

’It’s great to see smiling faces again.’

During the period of enforced closure, many companies were forced to be creative and find new ways of keeping their customers happy.

Most centres were able to continue trading throughout the period by creating new home order and delivery systems, which proved very popular.

’We started doing online deliveries for the first few weeks but then we had to take a week off as it was so busy,’ said Cheryl Witchell, from the Ballagawne Nurseries, in Colby.

’It was quite hectic. We’re not really set up for that kind of operation.

’Normally it is a place where people come and have a browse and wander through the plants, and is somewhere that people think of as a destination and a nice place to come rather than just a shop.

’We had to be creative and very adaptable and it did work well. It was difficult but we are in a much luckier position than many that we were able to carry on trading and keep going that way.

’The weather has definitely helped. We have probably waited a decade for this perfect spring weather. But it has meant that people have had more time to spend in the garden.

’It has been tiring,’ she continued.

’It is a busy time of year anyway, as we are a growing nursery rather than just buying our stock in. We are a bit behind with potting and things like that but we’re catching up now.

’Nothing has been wasted either. If anything we have sold out of many things and I wish we had some more stock.’

It has been a frustrating time for all, especially when the reopening of building centres meant that B&Q were able to open their gardening department earlier than other nearby companies.

’I know B&Q are a hardware store but they were able to sell their gardening items too,’ said Jackie, whose business is close by.

’So it’s not just us, but all garden centres on the Isle of Man were effectively at a disadvantage. We understood that it was a difficult time and situation for the government to deal with, but we felt that, if anything, we were better prepared than most to set up the shop for people to come in safely.

’We are a local business and we did feel hard done by. But we are open and we’re doing fine now.’