When David Wilson, the owner of Hetland Garden Centre, near Dumfries, told his wife Karen, that he had decided to convert their Orchard Planteria into a Dino Park she thought he was barking mad.

Now after a first season with over 35,000 paying visitors, Karen along with all of the team at Hetland Garden Centre, understand that Davids’ love for creating memorable experiences for children is something they can all be rightly proud of.

Operating a garden centre is more and more about creating a destination type experience.  The Dino park at Hetland Garden Centre is now well and truly on the destination experience map in the borders of Scotland.

When GTN visited recently we were blown away by the attention to detail, the care and enterprise that has been invested.  From the Disney like sound system, the sensor triggered smoke machines, the Jurassic Park electric fencing and the Dino beaten up Landover, everything has been fine tuned to turn a small orchard planteria into a Dino theme park.

Oh, yes of course there are Dinosaurs too.  Just like a good garden design, every turn of a path brings a new point of interest and there’s a Dino play area and a Dino Cafe too.

Not unsurprisingly David is already planning an extension for next season. “I’d like to add more things to appeal to older children.  Perhaps an animated Dinosaur and a Dino Adventure playground.”

If any garden centre is looking to add tourist destination type features GTN would encourage you to go and visit the Hetland Dino Park.  You’ll be impressed with what can be achieved by a relatively small garden centre – if the vision, passion and attention to detail are top of the agenda.

David Wilson (top right) with his team of Dino Rangers.  Having closed for the winter after half term the team are now busy getting ready for their Christmas roles as part of the park is converted into a winter grotto including an ice cave (instead of the mine) where children will meet Santa.  Even the dinosaurs are being "put to bed" under cover of snow camouflage netting so that children visiting will have a completely different experience that they had during the summer.