There has been much debate and discussion about the reopening of local garden centres. Squires in Twickenham has been rushed off its feet offering a FREE limited delivery service within a radius of seven miles. For those lucky enough to have any gardening space and with the approach of the May Bank Holiday and the reopening of B&Q and Homebase stores, the clamour to relax the rules around the nation's garden centres is gaining momentum.

Peter Seabrook MBE, VMH, AH(RHS) is a respected and long serving adviser to the horticultural trade, presented TV programmes coast to coast in the Sates for 20 years and numerous programmes for BBC One and Two including BBC Gardeners' World, Pebble Mill at One and Chelsea Flower Show. He has been Gardening Editor at The Sun for over 40 years and held Director posts for garden centres and nurseries

Open letter to the Prime Minister

Dear Sir,

Please, please, please make a special case and allow garden centres, retail nurseries and gardens to open this weekend.

I ask in the interests of our physical and mental well-being, when so many of us are in lockdown.

This is National Gardening Week and the first May Bank holiday is critical. There are so many things to be done this weekend to set gardens up for the next nine months.

Now folk fully understand social distancing at supermarkets, it must be safer to have controlled shopping in the open air and if we are to plant the million trees you recommend, to clean the very air we breathe, we need the plants and equipment.

Now one knows better than I, having lost my wife of 60 years to coronavirus on Good Friday, what a blessed relief it is to be out in the garden, hearing the birds sing, enjoying the spring flowers, growing some fresh food, shedding a tear and getting physically tired.

If garden centres remain closed, literally millions of plants will die and Britain's gardens will be the poorer.

Please, I beg you, let our nation of gardeners garden.

Yours sincerely,

Peter Seabrook, MBE