I imagine many Americans have some preconceived notions about the British and their attachment to gardening. However there's a good bit of truth in it -- the British are avid gardeners. Our first rented house here actually came with a gardener, a weathered old man named John who had a well-neigh impenetrable Buckinghamshire accent. John was in his eighties and had been working on our property in one capacity or another since he was 12. But despite his age, he never thought twice about stripping off to the waist and tackling whatever garden chores needed doing around the house.

The local culture serves John and all gardeners well -- and this is in the form of the 'garden centre'. While they don't quite have the statistical density of hot dog stands, it seems you are never ever far away from one.

Now, the British garden centre is not like nurseries we're accustomed to in the US. Here, garden centres are sprawling, elaborate affairs, and it's not unusual to find them equipped with things like a cafe, bookshop, ornamental pond, or play areas for children, not to mention the extensive choices of plant life, gear, accessories, furniture, and more.

One, near our last house, (and we had two within two miles of us) had a miniature woodland railroad for the kids, and around the holidays you can visit Father Christmas (Santa) in his grotto in the woods (Santa lurks in a grotto here!), and an old double-decker London bus is opened up and fill with “holiday refreshments” for the grownups (if you catch my drift). They become frequent rest stops for cycling clubs, hangouts for seniors, and in general have a considerable gravitational pull on the community.

 And the tools!...I'm sure it's the male equivalent to a woman suddenly finding herself in a room full of shoes, all in her size.

From what I recall in the US, usually you would be presented with two lines of tools, three at most, covering a few price ranges. Not so at the garden center. It's not unusual to be confronted with six or more complete lines of tools, representing the purely functional (the basic stuff), the high-tech (composite handles, shock-absorbing grips), the highly engineered (what else would you expect from a German tools line), the keenly edged (Wilkinson, the razor blade people, make garden tools here, so mind those hedge clippers), and the absolutely beautiful (and very pricey).

The aesthetics of this final category are wonderful. Refined metal finishes on blades and edges, quality handle woods, bent into graceful ergonomic arcs -- you don't want to get them dirty. And it's not like there's only one brand of these gorgeous tools; there are several, and clearly there's an active market for them. It's as if there's a strata of gardener that wants to maximize the pleasure of every aspect of the gardening activity.

Or maybe it's just garden bling. But for guys...it certainly is tool porn.

Tom Carroll/ Expatica