As I walked down a busy street in Camden Town, a neighborhood in northwest London, I saw a tall green wall in the distance. As I approached, I realized that the green wall--about ten feet tall--was a thick hedge. Above the hedge was a banner--Camden Garden Centre. The hedge-wall bordered both sides of the corner lot. In the middle of the wall, on the main street, was an entrance with a turnstile carved out of the hedge.

I stepped from the hot, dusty street through the gate into a green refuge. This was certainly someplace special--more like a secret garden than a place to buy plants. As I wandered through the garden, I read the signs that gave a clue to its organization: "plants for water gardens;" "plants for shade gardens;" "plants for pergolas;" "plants for rock gardens." The plants for sale were all arrayed within the type of place they would be planted.

I had only wandered a few minutes, when I was approached by a young man who asked if he could help me. I explained that I was visiting the garden center as a tourist rather than a customer and asked him to tell me the story of this place. Who works here? How did it come to be?

"Six of us work here with one manager," he said. "We are trainees, and the manager is our teacher. The garden center is open for business five days a week and the other days it is closed so that we can have classes in horticulture. We built this garden," he said proudly, "that was the first thing we did. It was designed by a landscape architect, and we built it."

How did you get this job? "Oh, many people applied, and we were interviewed," he said. "You had to be unemployed. You also had to agree to stay in the program for two years to receive a certificate. If I hadn't agreed, I might be gone now, for there are many jobs. We trainees have a company that we formed ourselves and we build gardens. We get a lot of business from people who come to buy plants here at the center. Today, several of my partners have a day off, and they are out on a job. We work here three days a week, take classes two days a week, and work on our own jobs on other days."

I wandered on my own through the garden center and its many gardens, each with plants displayed for sale. The clientele were varied. One woman was shopping for peat moss. A couple was engaged in intense discussion with the manager about what to plant in a shady part of their garden. I walked out, past the cash register, through the rear door of the garden center, and into a large parking lot. Across the lot, was a colorful mural painted on the wall of the adjacent building.

That was in 1984. In 1990 the garden center was still a thriving enterprise. It was begun as a private venture, financed by a commercial bank loan, and did not receive any subsidy or grant. Sales revenues went toward loan repayment and a fund for expansion.