Our garden centre in Dunboyne, Co Meath

Customers like to point our that our new garden isn't actually in Dunboyne. They say that it's much closer to Clonee. Over 20 years ago there was a garden centre on the site known as 'Clonee Garden Centre'. Then it became Gardenworks. After that it became Plantagen, and was a flagship shop for a Norwegian chain than planned to expand across Ireland. A few years after that it closed down, and now it has opened up as 'Avoca Dunboyne', and we have a big chunk of it on the left hand side. It seems that it will be known for the forseeable future as 'The Former Plantagen Garden Centre' as it was such a landmark in the area. If it sounds like it's a long way from Dublin, it's not. Take Exit 5 from the M3, cross over the motorway and drive in the same direction along the old N3. Always follow signs to Fairyhouse. It's less than ten minutes from the M50.

In any case, we have come from our very small shop in Monkstown to what is (for us) a very big shop. We have brought with us the same principles, and have been able to find space for more stock that we could fit into Airfield or Monkstown. We are still driven by a love of plants and the desire to sell healthy plants that thrive in Irish climate. We are proud of the fact that most of our outdoor plants are grown by Irish growers. These are people who know what works in Ireland, and Irish-grown plants have less 'road miles' than imported ones, are hardier and of course provide jobs within our own country. Although our shop is not huge, we believe that we have a selection of plants that will be hard to find elsewhere. We seek out the unusual and the beautiful, and many of our plants come from smaller, specialist growers: paeonies from a specialist paeony grower, herbs that are tough, hardy and flavoursome, trees and shrubs that are unusual and are grown from cuttings in Ireland, bedding plants that are grown in Wicklow, Kildare and Meath. Ultimately, plants are what we are interested in, and we hope that visitors will find what they are looking for when they come to our shop.