“The key thing to explain is that these garden centres will be the same. The simplicity of running Haskins with ideal layouts, the same sales mix, the same space mix by department makes running this business a great deal easier. If it’s right in one then it's right in all of the centres.The wages to sales ratio by department are the same and the restaurants at all of our centres are 22% of turnover.

“If we are to find a couple of other sites to acquire and redevelop they have got to be close to good middle class population for us to build and sustain a garden centre of this nature. We’re not looking to be a national business, we will be a strong regional business, with sites within three hours of Bournemouth, but not in Central London.

“Systems have enabled us to increase margins and customer spend and therefore improve our profitability. We now send over 2,500 emails to customers every week.  95% of stock in garden centres is centrally replenished which delivers improved stock control and increased sales. We are now investing in new catering stock control system.

“The demise of the high street and the rise of e-tailing has been a benefit to garden centres. We are part of the lipstick economy - we don't take a lot of money out of people’s pockets - a few pounds here and there to make people feel happy.  They buy some plants, buy some products and have a cup of coffee but customers expectations will continue to increase."

Alan Roper commented: “Blue Diamond was formed in 1904 and is now the largest privately owned garden centre group with no plans to sell out.

“When I joined in 1999 the company had three centres and I wrote a strategy for what a group could be.

“We’ve got to strike the right balance between corporate, entrepreneurial and empowering the teams in the centres so they don't feel like a group is going to turn up all suited and booted and they can't breathe, can't make decisions until we tell them to do so. In fact it is far from it, we are the opposite of that which is why we've grown as fast as we have even though we have been up against Terra Firma. That means winning not through money but through other values that family businesses respect.

“One of the challenges of running an expanding garden centre group is to break the garden centre down into different businesses and I’ve created four heads that look after buying and the retail space and take care of the employment of the department heads in the centres. They have complete ownership of that business – not just the product but also the execution of it.

“Head of Gardening (all of gardening except the living plants) is Stuart Whalley, Head of Plants is James Nuttall and Head of Fashion is Heidi Newton. A new Head of Home will be joining at the end of June, someone with High Street retail experience.

“The strategy is to grow using cash flow from the profitable retail business using a balance of freehold and leasehold acquisitions. We have 600 shareholders and the share price has gone up 160% in 10 years – 85% of that growth in the last five years – and earnings per share have gone up 320%.

“Available cash grows each year as we buy profitable businesses so we can maintain our rate of three centres every year, aiming towards £200m turnover in 10 years. We are also making plans to be able to buy a group like Garden & Leisure if one becomes available.

“I look for AB female customers especially where they are not currently being served by existing retailers and the key for us is to sell products with a point of difference that tonally fit. We pick up a lot of C1's too but you’ve got to have a vision to create something special.

“We are looking at own brand products and special product development.

“I give a retail structure but the empowered local teams take it to a new level, and are rewarded via the annual Blue Diamond Awards. It’s a high pressured business running garden centres – everybody has got to perform so empowerment is very important. I’ve always said we can’t grow if we don’t empower because what will happen is we will lose that extra special something that all the centres give and express and we’ll just turn into something that is a corporate non-entity where customers are bored."