Craig Forbes of The Mains of Drum Garden Centre

Meet Craig Forbes of The Mains of Drum Garden Centre

Mains of Drum is very much a family business. My younger brothers Grant and Cameron work in the construction side of the family business at Forbes

Homes, where my father, Deryck, is at the helm. I’m the manager at The Mains of Drum, while my mum Audrey heads up our Gift and

Clothing departments. My sister in law, Tammy, manages the Food Hall and HR departments, and her daughter Ava assists on the shop floor.

Sometimes, even the family dogs are in the office!

Back in 2003, my dad was in the middle of a round of golf when he was offered the chance to purchase the Mains of Drum site. It had originally traded as Deeside Nurseries. When he saw the site, he realised the possibility of creating something a little different from your average garden centre. I had just returned to London from working overseas and was keen to embrace a new challenge and join the family business. After six years planning and preparation, we finally opened the doors in April 2009.

When we were designing the garden centre, we were very mindful of our location on the castle trail and Royal Deeside, so we were inspired by the local baronial architecture. We have 16 acres of land so we had ample space to beautifully landscape the grounds, adding the pond at the near the entrance, where you will often find swans, ducks and other wild life. We try to minimise our impact on the environment, recycling water, installing low energy lighting, repurposing excess packaging and choosing environmentally conscious suppliers.

I love the variety of working here. I could be helping unload a delivery of plants that have just arrived from Italy one day, the next I could be outside in the grounds assisting cut grass and then by the end of the week I could be in the basement preparing and unpacking Christmas stock. My least favourite part of the job is dealing with the snow and ice in the customer car park over the winter months!

We’re extremely fortunate in having an incredibly loyal and established team, many of whom have been with us since the start. Everyone is truly committed to delivering the best customer service they possibly can while also ensuring the garden centre looks its best.

If I wasn’t working here, I’d liked to have followed in my aunt’s footsteps at the Foreign Office. It would have suited my love of overseas travel, too. I was visiting relatives in Cyprus last year and they convinced me to join a gym, against the odds. When I’m finished work, I tend to head there for a couple of hours.

As to the next few years, well, we did have plans in place to extend the garden centre, but thanks to the last few years, that has been on hold. I’m hopeful we may start work on this in the future.

mainsofdrum.co.uk