It started happening a few months ago, when the last of the spring bulbs were cleared from the shelves: the garden centres started to fill up with all manner of toot destined to be bought, wrapped, unwrapped and vaguely grimaced at around Christmas.
I’m neither a snob nor a Scrooge, but I struggle to find much delight in those bloated commercial palaces, created to make people spend money on anything but plants. Nobody really needs a solar-powered hedgehog. And yet they persist, in part, I think, because they offer solutions to the overwhelmed. Some people like to do all their Christmas shopping in John Lewis; others like to do it in a garden centre.
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