New Garden Centre

Paul B3

Has anyone had experience of Dobbies Garden Centres ?

Apparently there's one opening soon fairly near to us ; having never dealt with them , does anyone know about their plant quality and the kind of plants they provide .

Any answers gratefully received .

gjautos

I've always found the quality of plants pretty good. We have 2 by us and ibuse them both. Can be a bit pricey though. In my experience, you won't find any unknown gems at a dobbies. Plenty of DA roses, and bedding plants though!

AnniD

I agree that the plants are good quality if on the expensive side. Like a lot of garden centres these days there is a lot of non gardening related stuff as well, but if you have a partner who isn't into gardening that can prove useful 

g.king

Our local Wyevale was taken over by Dobbies last year. The quality of the plants has improved and the price remains more or less the same whilst being generally more expensive than local competition.
As per gjautos, you're unlikely to find anything out of the ordinary.
We have a Blue Diamond a little further away and I much prefer that or small independents.

celcius_kkw

The closest garden centre to where I live is a Dobbies.. I find that they have a good selection of plants as well a good stock of compost. At my local Dobbies there’s also a decent miscellaneous section (clothing, garden furnitures, food hall, butchers)

This year it seems they’ve run out of DA roses (although I find them slightly cheeky in displaying non DA roses while still retaining the DA roses banner / stand.. It could be misleading to the beginner Rose buyer.. on a few occasions they’ve also run out of the most basic stuff such as cheap seedling pots and wheelbarrow! I ended up having to drop by B n Q for those in the end.. which I feel is a shame for Dobbies seeing as they’re meant to be a garden centre while b n q is a DIY store.. 

Athelas

There is a Dobbies 20 minutes away from me. I agree the plants are good quality but it’s not for finding rare gems. Lots of bedding plants, shrubs and perennials. I got 5 salvia ‘Rose Marvel’ plants from them which are now flowering so quite happy with that, a healthy skimmia ‘Finchy’ and campanula ‘Campala’ from the Netherlands.

Dobbies has more choice for vegetables and also for stones (large rockery type stones, gravel, pebbles, big bags of grit) than the other GC closer to my house. However Dobbies has a smaller range of houseplants — basically just a few stands close to the checkout counter, garden furniture, BBQs large specimen trees and DA roses for sale than the other GC. I don’t think it has a pets department which the other GC has. Both have clothing, shoes, houseware and gift items though the other GC has a nicer selection I think, however  I don’t buy that stuff from either. Also, the other GC has staff ready to help load mulch in your car (and it doesn’t feel like a favour or special service to ask for) so I don’t have to load heavy bags onto a trolley and push it all through the store to pay for it.

Bright star

Our local dobbies now has a Sainsbury’s supermarket inside and a large section devoted to kitchen and home decorative accessories. Plants are ok but nothing special. I have since learned on this forum that the chain is now owned by Thompson and Morgan who have also bought Sutton’s seeds.

Elfer

g.king said:

We have a Blue Diamond a little further away and I much prefer that or small independents.

As far as GC are concerned we are a bit spoilt for choice here in Hampshire, our fav is also blue diamond in Brambridge park.

Fran IOM

I was under the impression that T&M had bought out Dobies which is not the same company as Dobbies. Someone else may be able to confirm this. I could be wrong. I now avoid Sutton's and Dobies after what I have read on the forum about T&M.

Zenjeff

Yes it’s not the large chain of Dobies which bought a lot of Wyvales but the one based in Devon and Sutton’s

Bright star

I may have confused the two, I  didn’t realise Dobbies and Dobies were two different companies, apologies for the confusion.