Stuart Lindsay, owner of The Garden Depot Napier, will be the last person to run a garden centre in that spot after 50 years. Photo / Warren Buckland
Stuart Lindsay, owner of The Garden Depot Napier, will be the last person to run a garden centre in that spot after 50 years. Photo / Warren Buckland
The site that was Hawke’s Bay’s first drive-in garden centre will be uprooted in January to make way for new housing after 50 years as a garden centre.
Stuart Lindsay and his business partner, Adrian Woodhams, took over The Garden Depot in 2016, previously known as Tamatea Greenworld and, beforethat, Sangs Garden Centre when it first opened in 1971, over 50 years ago.
Now the store owner Lindsay said the lease on the land was going to get too expensive for them to stay on with declining business and struggle over Covid.
He compared the decline of the garden centre industry to the decline of video rental stores.
“They did nothing wrong, it is just that a new type of lifestyle has been created and they weren’t included in it,” Lindsay said.
He said he had seen people’s gardens grow smaller in the time he has run the garden centre.
“My neighbour sold her backyard and a new young couple went and built a house on it. She had a lovely garden, but she got older and couldn’t look after it any more.”
He said the store was known as the fruit tree, ornamental deciduous tree and rose hub when he took over, but the tastes of customers were changing.
“They were not repeat items. You plant one fruit tree and that is it, and as the yards got smaller and smaller, people don’t want a hedge, they want a secure fence.”
Lindsay is not certain what he will do in two months when his store shuts, but his landlord, Hayden Durrant, plans to put 10 new homes on the site of The Garden Depot Napier. Photo / Warren Buckland
Landlord Hayden Durrant said it was a “bit of a shame” to see another garden centre gone in Napier.
He said the building getting old and he decided to build houses on the land since it was already a residential area.
He said there were plans for 10 small houses to cater to older people who want a small section.
Nell Sang, the original owner of the garden centre when it opened as Sang’s Garden Centre in 1971, said she was sad to hear The Garden Depot Napier was closing down.
“There will only be Mitre 10, The Warehouse and Oderings out at Pakowhai, so it is not a big variety of places people can go to.”
She said Sang’s Garden Centre was the “first drive-in garden centre in Hawke’s Bay”.
Sang said she felt sorry for garden centres, who were seeing significantly less business now than they did when she ran one when gardening was a top leisure time activity.
“They have a different type of clientele, the people are only interested in putting a bit of colour into their garden and keeping it low maintenance,” Sang said.
“You don’t have people asking for this, that or the other, and that is what we did have. It broadened our knowledge of the types of plants that were available and the different varieties.”
She is hopeful that more people are being encouraged again to start their own gardens and grow their own food recently.
“I think it will come back again. If you wanted to start small and just have a couple of big buckets or barrels and just grow some lettuce or silverbeet, parsley. It is a start.”
The Garden Depot Napier has invited past staff members, friends, family and customers to a shared lunch to commemorate the store closing on January 13, 2023, from 11am to 2pm.
