About Otter

Otter Garden Centre started in 1964.

Join us as we celebrate 60 years

2024 is a very special year for us here at Otter as we are celebrating 60 years as a family owned and run garden centre.

That’s quite a milestone!

We started out as a tiny business in Ottery St Mary, when Marilyn and Malcolm White bought a plot of land and began growing vegetables and plants for local East Devon markets and customers.

The Otter Garden Centre family has blossomed to encompass seven beloved garden centres across the beautiful landscapes of the South West and surrounding areas.

We also remain a growing nursery, continuing to grow 80% of the plants in our garden centres.

Our History

1964
Our beginnings

Otter Nurseries started life in 1964 when Malcolm and Marilyn White took a bank loan to buy a field and second-hand mobile home.
The same year Otter Nurseries began, our founders Malcolm & Marilyn got married on 25th July 1964.

The dog, Mandy, was a rescue dog who lived with Malcolm until they were married when she became their dog!

A White Wedding
Our Nurseries

We began growing lettuce, cabbage and carrots for the local markets then moved into bedding plants, which were sold from Marilyn & Malcolm’s mobile home directly to the public. Interest in the nursery quickly began to grow.
We’ve Always Been A Family Business

Daughters Jacqui and Cathy became involved from a young age. Jacqui recalls getting up early to help Marilyn make hanging baskets before arriving at school
with bits of moss stuck in her hair.

1978
1974
Branching into Garden Buildings
Customers buying young plants wanted a suitable places to grow them on. Spotting a gap, the young entrepreneurs began selling a handful of simple, 6 X 8 ft greenhouses in addition to their range of plants and composts.
Marilyn’s Dad, Russ was retired and wanted to help his daughter in the fledgling business. He believed that more customers would buy greenhouses if Otter could also build them. So he came out of retirement and became Otter’s very first greenhouse installer.

Russ was so keen to support his daughter and son-in-law’s new venture flourish, that he helped them out and like all good Dad’s was paid in coffees and sponge cakes!

All Hands On Deck!
1984
Opening our first ‘branch’ garden centre
Our garden centre grew, and by the early 80s, Malcolm and Marilyn were growing more plants than they could sell from the one site so they looked for another in Devon and found a small site at 250 Babbacombe Road where they set up their first ‘branch’ garden centre in Torbay.
Our new garden centre was next to a new WH Smith Do-It-All store. Miss World came to cut the opening ribbon for the Do-It-All whilst we had a live otter to open our site (no scissors involved).

Once both ribbons were cut, Miss World came over to ask if she could stand with our otter to meet customers, as there was a huge queue to see the otter and she was not used to being upstaged!

A celebratory opening
1995
Our first Claire Hannah bloomed

This beautiful Camellia was first propagated by us. Now exclusively grown and sold by Otter Garden Centres, it is a beautiful coral pink, with an irregular semi-double of 26 petals.
Opening our third branch at Plymouth

1996
2002
Opening Our Plant Centre & Growing Nurseries at Lymington

The site was formerly the Government Horticultural Research Station in Efford and became part of the Otter family in 2002.
Wincanton Garden Centre joins our Otter family

We made a big investment into our fourth branch at Wincanton, Somerset. We added a new roof, enhanced the outdoor area and improve the entrance and car park to improve the experience for our customers.

2010
2011
Jacqui becomes our MD

Jacqui started her career here at Otter and is very proud to take over as MD of our family-run business. Otter really is a family for all our team members, we have many team members who have chosen to stay with us for many years which we are very proud of.
Working Towards A Greener Future: Introducing Solar Power
We installed solar panels at 4 of our sites, helping to keep our energy usage very low.

Most of our roof areas are covered with solar panels and we check our readings on a regular basis to ensure we are maximising the use of the sun every day!

As we continue to grow as a business, we continue to explore where we can site additional panels to generate even more energy!

2012
2013
Using Renewable Energy
We replaced our old oil and gas boilers at our Ottery St Mary site with a biomass system and now have biomass boilers at our Ottery St Mary and Lymington sites.

Our entire retail area and growing nursery in Ottery St Mary are heated by three 199KW woodchip boilers, whilst a 25kW log burning biomass boiler supplies heat and hot water for the offices. To feed the log-burning biomass boiler we source the logs from a very local supply.
Our Golden Anniversary

To be able to say we’ve been around for 50 years and the business is still run by the family which started it is something we are really proud of!

2014
Goodbye To Our First Branch, Hello To Our Brand New Torbay Garden Centre

In July, we closed our garden centre in Babbacombe Road and bought Styles Garden Centre in Moles Lane, Paignton, with plans to refurbish and expand the operation.

The team from Babbacombe and the team from Styles joined forces to grow the business.
We Rebranded as Otter Garden Centres
Marking 50 years brought with it the inspiration for a review of our Otter, and we decided it was time to look at a fresh approach to its brand.

2017
2018
Supporting our customers with electric vehicles
We installed EV (electric vehicle) charging points for customers at our Ottery St Mary, Plymouth, Wincanton and Lymington Garden Centres to encourage the use of electric cars.
Opening Our Sixth & Seventh Branch at Jack’s Patch & Taunton

Previously Wyevale garden centres, Jack’s Patch and Taunton joined the Otter Garden Centre family in July 2019.

2019
2021
Our Journey Towards Peat Free

As a business, we share the concerns of many gardeners about the impact of peat extraction.

For the past few years, we have been working behind the scenes with our suppliers to cut down the use of peat, both in the compost we sell and the compost we use on our own growing nurseries.

In 2021 we doubled the number of peat-free composts available in our garden centres.
Plant Centre Makeovers

We understand that plants are the lifeblood of our garden centre. That’s why we invested in our Ottery St Mary, Jack’s Patch and Plymouth outdoor plant centres.

A remarkable 80% of our plants are lovingly grown in our 3 on-site growing nurseries, ensuring the utmost care and freshness.

2023
2024
Celebrating Six Decades of Growing

2024 is a very special year for us here at Otter as we are celebrating 60 years as a family owned and run garden centre. That’s quite a milestone!