How family's garden centre blossomed over 70 years

One of the UK's early garden centres is celebrating 70 years as a family business, which saw the owner fall in love with and marry his first employee.

"Roger used to pick me up and take me to market every day; we gradually got fond of each other," recalled Hazel Aylett, now 88.

Horticulture student Roger Aylett founded Aylett Nurseries in St Albans, Hertfordshire, in 1955, when "there was nothing here except a green field".

"There wasn't a garden centre, they weren't invented then. We used to sell our bunches of dahlias and people said 'why can't you sell us anything else?' And that's how it all started," said Ms Aylett.

Mr Aylett died in 2010 but his daughter and son-in-law Julie and Adam Wigglesworth continue to manage the business.

They now employ 150 staff, but Ms Aylett said the early days were very different.

"I was Roger's first student when I was 18 years old, and he paid me £1 a week," she said.

"Roger couldn't afford any staff – why was I sent here (from college) if it wasn't in the stars that I was going to fall in love with this man?

"We used to grow sweet peas and delphiniums for the cut flower trade, but we spent the first 15 years losing money. The bank manager begged my mother in law to get rid of the nursery as it was such a drain."

Ms Wigglesworth said a turning point came in the late 1960s when another horticulturalist "came up with the idea of putting plants into pots".

"Before, you could only do it as bare root stock - it was very seasonal.

"Once this idea of containerisation took off, plants could be purchased and it really took off," she explained.

Mr Aylett, who Mr Wigglesworth described as "an absolute character", also drove the company forward with his passion and personality.

"He loved growing a good plant, and a good crop. He built the business on customer service, Roger was always on the shop floor," he said.

Mr Wigglesworth said the centre, which has recently added hundreds of solar panels to power 30% of its operations, had often forged ahead with new technologies.

"We were the first garden centre in the country to have bar codes," he said.

"In the 70s we had an environmental system to manage the greenhouse - now you get that on your phone, but Roger did it decades ago."

Nursery manager Tony Day recently celebrated 50 years at Aylett, after starting his first job there aged 16.

"I came here as a nursery worker on a team of about 15 people, learning anything and everything," he said.

"My philosophy is to make sure I grow something well and make sure it's better next season.

"I don't think I would have been here if I didn't appreciate the Ayletts as a family as well. It helps to be appreciated in your job."

Mr Day has seen gardening trends come and go.

"When I first started, there were a lot of the 'old boy gardeners', who loved dahlias, chrysanthemums, the old fashioned plants," he said.

"The gardens were bigger then. Now you get more patios and small gardens.

"The trends have changed from large lawns with decorative borders to smaller patio gardens. People love containers, smaller flowering plants round by their barbeques."

Ms Wigglesworth admitted that garden centres today faced "enormous challenges".

"We've got climate change, plant health, issues of peat and as the world gets smaller - who know what diseases," she said.

Mr Wigglesworth said on the positive side, "people are as interested in nature as they've ever been".

"Garden centres have a rosy future. We've got an absolute wealth of experience," he added.

Ms Aylett, who lives on the site, said the memory of her husband still continued.

"We miss Roger every single day, he was the guiding light behind it all," she said.

"As a family business it's important to carry on, but what the future holds I don't know."

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