It's been 50 years since one Merseyside man "turned his hobby into a business" and transformed a field into a thriving nursery.
Located on Sandy Lane in Melling, Sandy Lane Nurseries started from humble beginnings in the 1970s when owner Mervyn Davies decided to have a career change and buy land to build a business he loves. Hidden away and off the beaten track, over the years Mervyn and the team have built up a loyal following of customers which first grew from recommendations and word of mouth.
Originally selling homegrown salad crops, today customers can visit the site to purchase the likes of hanging baskets, beddings, shrubs and trees. Now celebrating half a century in business, Mervyn said he never though the business would "end up being what it is now."
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Mervyn, 78, told the ECHO: "I was born in Kirkby and my father was a farmers son and my grandfather was a head gardener in a big walled garden in Norfolk, so I had a little bit of interest instilled in me in regards to horticulture. When I left school I had the choice of either going into horticulture or electrical engineering.
"My dad was an electrical engineer and he persuaded me to go into electrical engineering so I left school in 1959 and I went to Derby and did training there. In 1966 I came back to Kirkby and got a job with BICC (British Insulated Callender's Cables) in Melling, the cable manufacturers.
"I joined their technical department and I was there for approximately 25 years. As I was doing my career, I saw an awful lot of my colleagues and bosses not making it to retirement so I decided I was going have a look at horticulture.
"I was lucky enough to buy some land in Melling and that's when I started the business in 1973. I bought the land off a Mr Fred Roby in Melling and it was just a field, there was nothing else here at all and I set about building some greenhouses.
"Once I got the greenhouses erected I managed to get the planning permission for my house, so I built a house here as well. I've extended it so now I have roughly three quarters of an acre of glass houses and the whole nursery is about four acres."
Mervyn said the business was originally set up to grow salad crops like tomatoes, lettuces and cucumbers, later expanding to floristry and eventually growing shrubs and trees, which is now the bulk of the business. Also loved for selling bedding plants and hanging baskets, Sandy Lane Nurseries has gradually altered through the years since its humble beginnings in the 1970s.
Mervyn said: "The products we grow and sell now are completely different to when we started. The thing I found difficult to begin with was the selling.
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"I could grow my own stuff, but selling it – now we are a retail nursery we do deal directly with the customers and now they come and see us. Another beauty of the business is growing plants, there’s a new plant or species, new varieties come out every year.
"But what we have done is changed to shrubs and trees which are the core of our business, that keeps us going most of the year, with the bedding and the baskets in the spring."
Through the decades, Mervyn said he's had a "great deal of loyalty" from both customers and staff. Today the team consists of Mervyn, Jacqui, Mark, Thomas and Carol, who is in charge of the accounts and customers who first came years ago continue to visit.
Mervyn said: "It's one of the reasons I'm still doing the business. I could have retired probably 10 or 15 years ago.
"I do it because part of the interest is seeing and talking to the people and working with the staff that I have. Mark has been with me 30 years, Jacqui is well into double figures, Thomas joined us fairly recently and Carol in the accounts has been with me double figures.
"They're one of the reasons I've kept going." Mervyn said one of his proudest moments through the years in business would have to be achieving 50 years.
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He also said he would recommend horticulture as a business to anyone who is really interested in it. Mervyn said: "I never thought it would end up being what it is now – employing three full time people on the nursery and Carol Ranson who deals with our accounts.
"She has been one of my mainstays, without her financial guidance I don't know whether I'd have been quite as successful. I turned my hobby into a business."
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