Donaghadee Garden Centre

I don’t know what’s happened but all of a sudden garden centres have become über chic in Northern Ireland! Donaghadee is no different attracting young mums and ladies who lunch. I was reluctantly dragged here by my mum and my sisters for a midweek lunch and to be honest I was pleasantly surprised.
It’s an odd set up at Donaghadee Garden Centre — the interior doesn’t really sell any garden equipment– it’s more of a country bumpkin shop selling hunter wellies, Cath Kidston gear, Yankee candles and various old school childrens toys. It’s the type of place you’d go to buy your mum a wee present if you wanted here to say, ‘awk that’s nice’ when she opened it.
When you walk through the shop you are presented with a big yard and then it all becomes much more like a garden centre — sheds, fountains, planters and porcelain statues. Not too much hardware on show.
The café is set up in cafeteria style — you have to pick up a wooden tray and queue up to pick what you want — portion sizes are huge so make sure your eyes aren’t bigger than your belly. I opted for chicken and broccoli bake and garlic baby potatoes — the food was outstanding, not what you’d expect from a garden centre!
There’s plenty of seating and a huge choice of deserts so you might find yourself staying put for linger than you expected as we did. All in all it was a pretty good experience — better for lunch than it is for buying a rake, needless to say my mum loves the place.

Now I’m not an outdoorsy or garden kind of person, but every time I visit this garden centre, I resolve to go home and transform our boring patio and lawn into a overflowing cottage garden. Then I get distracted by the interior goodies. And the café. There’s always next year to create that garden.
Donaghadee Garden Centre is the ultimate treasure trove of lovely things for your home. Scented candles, oven gloves, cushions, little pieces of furniture. If you’re a minimalist freak, it’s not for you, but if you love a little bit of controlled clutter, then you’ll be in heaven. There’s Cath Kidston galore and lots of shaker style pieces like wooden signs and table cloths. But none of it is twee which is my worst nightmare.
Oh and the café. I often go in swearing that I’ll just have a scone, and then just cannot resist the unbelievably good chicken and broccoli bake. It is just so tasty and full of proper pieces of chicken and real ingredients, and comes with beautiful home made coleslaw and salad. Delish.
So, for those of you who must buy stuff for the garden when you’re in a garden centre, there are all kinds of plants and shrubs and compost and other dirty things that you need for digging about in the flower bed. Happily for me, there are also some very knowledgeable members of staff to help the clueless.