It seems to me that throughout the UK with the exception of The Green Machine there are no real stores that specialise in aquatic plants or aquascaping. In the past few years iv visited a LOT of shops and none of them it seems really specialise in our hobby. Sure enough you get a few that are better than others but most of them really seem to just stock the usual bunched and potted plants mostly in a neglected and poor condition. A few if your lucky stock specialist substrates and fertilisation techniques and maybe mini landscape rock, the odd bit of dragon stone and vine wood but you never seem to see large amounts of these or a good variety of aquascaping products. Whenever you talk to staff they never seem to have a great deal of interest in the plants themselves and knowledge is at best often a little basic. I’m not exactly an expert in this subject myself but it seems when you mention something even slightly more technical you just get blank confused looks. None of the shops out there seem to have particularly specialised systems for the upkeep of their plants or very inspirational display tanks, looks like TGM has the right idea and found a little niche in the market although maybe it isn’t a big enough one for more than one shop to make a great deal of profit from.
I must be wrong surely there are a few places out there worthy of a visit for a half decent chat and some slightly different products worthy of spending my pennies on! Does anybody know of shops worth checking out especially around the south? I always get bored on my days off and at the best of times end up driving miles to visit different shops for a look!
