Haskins Garden Centre group has opened its Christmas department across all centres, due to high demand from customers.

With centres in Dorset, Hampshire and West Sussex, the popular garden centre group experienced a higher number of visitors to the Christmas department last year than ever before. The group normally launches Christmas in September but has opted to open in April to give shoppers more time to spread the cost of Christmas over a longer period of time.

Dean Ridley, head of retail operations at Haskins, commented: "We normally give our customers three months to shop our Christmas department, but we're finding that more and more people are enjoying visiting early and we get quite a lot of requests to open even earlier. Can you ever really have too much Christmas cheer?"

Lisa Looker, brand director at Haskins, commented: "We have worked hard to ensure this bold move will put us on the map as a must-visit pre-Christmas destination. Christmas is always such a busy time and it can be quite stressful for some people. With just 269 days to go until the big day, we hope that by giving our shoppers more time to get themselves organised for Christmas that any stress can be avoided."