Dobbies gears up for the 1st day of spring
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Dobbies is gearing up for its busiest season of the year with more than 17.5m summer bedding plants starting to make their way into 71 stores across the UK in pots, packs, containers and hanging baskets.
Seasonally relevant just now are Pansies, Violas and Osteospermum as customers look to fill their garden spaces with spring colour.
It might only be March but Dobbies has seen an increase in footfall across its stores this month, compared to this time last year.
Early surge in interest in garden living
Dobbies is predicting an early surge in interest of its garden living collections ahead of a summer of sport. The Euros, Olympics and Paralympics, and two T20 World Cups are likely to encourage more outdoor entertaining and, as a result, the garden centre is increasing its choice of garden furniture and outdoor cooking ranges including a new collection of own-brand BBQ tools.
Andy Hannan, Dobbies’ new commercial director, said: “We’re expecting a busy start to the gardening season with our bedding plants expected to fly off the shelves.
“Anecdotally, we’ve already seen customers take particular interest in our garden living collections. There’s an excitement about the forthcoming summer of sport and people are making early preparations to make sure their gardens are in tip-top shape for hosting.”