Posted by Red on March 26, 2009 - 5:04am » No Comments
I like garden centres, especially in the Spring and Summer, because they’re an ideal, free (unless you’re with my mother, who can drop a fortune on plants) place to visit to take all kinds of interesting photos. Not just plants and flowers, either. Most of them sell garden decorations, statues, pots, paving, timber… there are all kinds of interesting things that they have lurking around. Personally, I draw the line at compost, but I’m sure that far more talented photographers than I could get some interesting photos out of even that. 
Bees, butterflies and other insects like to lurk around garden centres, too. Flowers and pollen attract them, and they don’t particularly care if they’re supposed to be paying for the plants they’re landing on. This said, catching the buggers can be a trial, because the first you see of them is usually when they bomb past your head, flick their bums at you rudely, then zip off over a fence before you can take a picture. At least, I hope that’s not just me.
Ponds are pretty common in garden centres, though I haven’t really got the knack of getting pictures of fish through water yet. On the plus side, they’re not as fast to zip off as insects are, so you stand a chance of actually getting a shot a picture that isn’t solely comprised of fish tails.
All those other interesting things aside, ultimately it’s the flowers that are the biggest reason I love garden centres. My mum makes awesome gardens, but there are some flowers, trees and plants that I can’t find at home simply because they cost too much, they’re not suitable for our soil, or they simply require too much specialist care. At a garden centre Someone Else does that work for me, and all I have to do is sidle in and take some shots. I do get some funny looks from elderly people as I’m snapping away while they pick out primulas, though. ;)
