Tim and Helen Noble, owners of Holly Farm Nurseries and Garden Centre in Prees, Shropshire, are retiring and have put their 35-year-old business up for sale.
The husband and wife team started their business in 1979 on their return from Ethiopia where Mr Noble worked as an engineer on a sugar refinery and Mrs Noble taught English.

While in Ethiopia the couple became interested in plants and took a horticulture course, it was this interest which was the driving force behind the establishment of Holly Farm Nurseries and Garden Centre.

In the early days the centre turned over a mere £100, but with hardwork and dedication from the couple and their team it now turns over £276,000.

Speaking to diyweek.net Mrs Noble recalls: "We started growing vegetables and selling them locally at markets and to restaurants. However, with the growth of supermarkets, it's a difficult business to be in now. They push a lot of growers out of business.

"We moved into ornamental plants as there is a lot more money in that and now vegetables are a subsidiary part of the business."

Mrs Noble says it will be business as usual at the garden centre until the sale of the site, which includes a five-bedroom house, outbuildings and nine acres of land, goes through.

She adds: "Both Tim and I hope the buyer will continue the site as a nursery or along similar lines. We hope they take it forward from the foundations we have laid.

"We have a lot of cherished memories of the business and are sad to be retiring and selling the garden centre. But we have reached the age where we should be retiring, although it was a very hard decision to make, it is the right one."