At some point in life most people face a turning point, or a change of direction; maybe it’s moving house, starting again in a new location, or calling time on a career, but for Lisa and Gary it’s been all three, all at once.
Most people who have lived in Cardiff for some time know the Dutch Garden Centre, even if it’s just because of the large windmill on the signage on the roundabout that greets them when coming off the A48 on the way to Cardiff Gate and the east of the capital.
Long-time residents of the capital usually have stories to tell or memories to share about visiting the Dutch Garden Centre with their parents to buy plants, shrubs and trees, especially when years ago the site was the only place to source them, with no competition from supermarkets, online, or multi-purpose garden centre sites.
But in May 2026 the couple announced the centre would be closing, probably at the end of the summer or when all the stock has been sold.
In that one moment they will have lost their home, their business and their connection to Wales, with the plan to relocate to north Devon once the keys are handed over to Cardiff council, who are the freehold owners of the site.
Most people who travel around Cardiff have seen the signs of the Dutch Garden Centre at some point (Image: Rob Browne/WalesOnline)
Lisa tells WalesOnline: “When we wrote the Instagram post there wasn’t a dry eye in the room, and we hesitated, we just sat there, no-one wanted to press the ‘post’ button, I think in the end our son did it.
“The reaction to the news has been really overwhelming, not just lovely comments online but customers dropping in with flowers and chocolates, it’s been so incredible.”
It was not an easy decision for the couple. They have worked at the garden centre for 48 years, continuing the legacy that Lisa’s father Jaap Deen had started at an old farmhouse before any of Llanedeyrn, Pentwyn or Pontprennau even existed.
As well as their work, the site includes the home they built for their family in 1994, where their children were raised, and the couple think it is likely that everything at the site will be demolished once the family leave.
Although Lisa was born in Cardiff the site has always celebrated the family’s Dutch heritage(Image: Rob Browne/WalesOnline)
Gary says: “Basically, the council said to tell them when we’re done, there’s been no pressure for it from them, then I guess they will literally come in with the bulldozers, knock the houses down, and the greenhouse.
“Lisa’s parents’ house was originally about 400 years old. It was an old Welsh farmhouse and that’s still on site, but it’s been empty since they moved out, so, eight, nine years ago now.”
The site was sold to Cardiff council in 2018 and the couple have been renting it back since then, but with the current economic climate, strong competition from big ‘shed’ garden centres, supermarkets and online, and the couple now heading towards their sixties, they have decided to call it a day and close the business.
The centre became one of the most well-known businesses in the capital, photo taken around 1983/84(Image: Rob Browne/WalesOnline)
Gary says they thought for a very long time about fighting to keep going but after decades of working every weekend, their son wanting to travel and forge his own career, and their daughter recently leaving for New Zealand, semi-retirement and moving to north Devon where they have family and friends is now the path for their future.
He says: “It’s been a long decision to close. It’s taken us a couple of years to come to the decision. There were suggestions that the council were looking to create a school at the site, but the most recent plan I think is for a green crematorium.
“The council hasn’t given us notice or anything like that, we just feel it’s time. Retail’s not getting any easier, the whole place is getting older, so we can’t invest in it to make improvements anymore, and there’s so much competition in the sector.”
How so many current Cardiff residents remember the garden centre from their childhood, especially that windmill – photo taken around 1983/84(Image: Rob Browne/WalesOnline)
The seeds of the garden centre’s development and growth were sown when Lisa’s dad Jaap Deen arrived from north Holland and began landscape gardening in the area.
Lisa says: “He came over to the UK to learn the language, with just his push bike and some garden tools. He didn’t speak any English, arrived at Cardiff central station in the early 1960s and started landscaping. He had worked in the bulb fields in Holland, in his clogs, since he was 11 years old.”
Lisa says she isn’t sure why her father chose Cardiff to arrive and stay but so many gardens across the capital are so glad he did, with trees and plants now mature and thriving, the living legacy of the family’s business and decades of hard work supplying gardens across the capital and beyond.
Founders, owners, and Lisa’s parents Jaap and Pam Deen at the garden centre taken around 1983(Image: Rob Browne/WalesOnline)
Gary says: “We do get so many people telling us about how their past purchases are still happily growing in their gardens and how the site has been part of their memories.”
“We have some customers who are so loyal, and visit so regularly, we know them so well,” Lisa adds. “As soon as they get out of their car they don’t have to even speak, we know them so well that we know what they have come to buy.
“Many of our customers are gutted to hear the news, but we will have a special message for them just before we close, they’ve been so lovely.”
Lisa says leaving the home, the business and the memories behind will be ‘a wrench'(Image: Rob Browne/WalesOnline)
Gary, born and raised in Cardiff, left school at 16 and secured a job at the garden centre working 7am to 4pm. He and Lisa, also born in Cardiff, formed a close friendship and Lisa says they ‘dabbled’ as a potential couple but that it was nothing serious.
Then Gary left the business to develop and grow his own landscape business and Lisa met other boyfriends. A few years later, he dropped into the site to purchase some plants and encountered Jaap tapping on his car window.
Gary remembers: “He said, ‘Gary, Lisa is a free agent now.’ They were his exact words. But I did ask her out and we went horse riding for our first official date, I think. That was 37 years ago.
“The Dutch are renowned for being direct, aren’t they? They’re the most direct on the planet, apparently, and they say it as it is, they don’t beat around the bush! You ask them a question and they give you a straight answer, whether you like it or not.”
Gary first started working at the garden centre when he was 16 and says the final day will be emotional(Image: Rob Browne/WalesOnline)
Lisa laughs, adding: “The directness has been very embarrassing over the years, with my father especially. He was very, very direct! I do have a lot of those traits, it does come out, but it’s in the DNA, I can’t help it.”
Over the decades the garden centre has also welcomed Welsh celebrities, browsing for plants and rarely recognised or interrupted by other customers. The couple say there have been many but can remember Charlotte Church, Cerys Matthews, Ruth Jones and ‘Dave Coaches’ Steffan Rhodri from BBC’s Gavin & Stacey.
Lisa does remember Jaap putting his size ten Dutch clog right in his mouth with one customer. She says, “My dad did say to Tom Jones’ wife: ‘Are you Tom Jones’ mother?’ And she was like: ‘no, I am not, I’m his wife!'”
The couple’s son Sam has worked at the centre his whole life and once it closes has decided to go travelling(Image: Rob Browne/WalesOnline)
Another stand-out memory, for the scariest of reasons, was the day the UK’s hurricane struck in October 1987 as part of the infamous Great Storm. At the garden centre the massive greenhouse took a battering with Gary remembering about 300 panes of glass being “sucked out of the frame” and the back wall of the structure being pushed back by the wind by about 12 inches.
The family have also been witness to Cardiff’s relentless growth over the decades. Lisa says that when Jaap bought the site it was a farmhouse all on its own in and about eight acres, the M4 in south Wales hadn’t been built and the huge delivery lorries from countries such as the Netherlands and Italy had to navigate their vehicle through the country lanes.
Gary adds: “The Polish drivers, they still do it! You see him going up the lane in a hurry, and you’re shaking your head going, ‘no, no, don’t go any further!’ But they carry on. And then an hour later, there he is coming backwards down the lane to the entrance.”
The centre will close late summer or when all the stock has been sold(Image: Rob Browne/WalesOnline)
There have also been times in the past when it was so difficult they thought about calling it a day then, but it was always the passion for the site that gave them strength to keep going.
Gary says: “Lisa’s father built it from nothing, and she’s grown up here, our children have grown up here. Our son is involved, the third generation in the business now, so, you know, we were thinking of keeping it on for him for a bit longer, but he doesn’t want to do it seven days a week, he wants to find his own path.”
Lisa says customers have also worried about the future of the garden centre’s four goats now the closure has been announced, but they will be moving to north Devon too, as well as Lisa’s mother and their daughter’s dog.
But when the day does come to close and lock the gates for the last time, it will be the end of an era and the couple know it will be a time of heightened, mixed emotions and will definitely end in tears.
Lisa says: “It’s going to be a massive wrench, because there’s memories in every corner of the place, you know? Gary came to work here at 16, so he’s been involved here nearly as long as me.”
Gary adds: “I can’t imagine it yet, but I will be upset. We keep saying it’s the start of an exciting new chapter for us and that way it makes it easier to think about and then to do.”
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