DIY chains give poor gardening advice, claim Which?
Snapshot research carried out by Which? Gardening magazine shows that to get great advice on plants you should go to a garden centre and avoid the UK’s largest DIY chains.
Secret shoppers from Which? visited garden centre chains and DIY stores posing as inexperienced gardeners. They asked for advice on a diseased rose and wanted to buy another rose to plant in the same spot to replace it.
A spokesperson for Which? said: 'Homebase and B&Q say that a lot of their plant staff are horticulturally trained, but they gave the poorest advice on our visits.
The staff we spoke to generally managed to deal with the simple question on rose blackspot and recommended a suitable chemical treatment. But our secret shoppers were only told about the potential problems with replacing a rose with another rose on four out of 12 visits, and were recommended a suitable solution only once.
"Often the problem is finding the right member of staff – in one Homebase store, the only person who was available to help our shopper was someone from the paint section.
"The Garden Centre Group came out top in our research. In all of our visits the staff listened to the problem carefully and gave very thorough advice. They explained clearly what to do, but also the reasons for doing it."
