Haskins Garden Centre in East Dorset

Love it. Lots of choices and great food

Looking for special gardening gloves and had what I wanted.

So disappointed. Went a couple of months ago and had a great experience. This time the restaurant was busy, but tables were full of dirty dishes, staff were standing around chatting and by the time I’d found a clean table, my food was cold.

A friend and I went for a Christmas lunch today unfortunately the roast potatoes were cold and the rest of the dinner was just warm, paying £16 99 each I would of thought it would of been better, it all tastes lovely just spoiled by being cold…

What an amazing place, much more than a garden centre. Even the Sunday roast dinner is excellent and good value for what you get. This is a very popular place, especially on a weekend so parking is a bit difficult even though plenty of spaces.

Always busy , great food selection in the café

Not been since refit Very nice refit ,very high slandered We go to see xmas every year as 1 of best And yes very good and from a high spec classic look couldn't fault... Tho it lacked the spirit (fun) from previous yrs Lovely cafe But overall I feel the look and feel is now anti family (kids) as play park gone and no amination for Xmas..

Amazing place to shop, and the restaurant is amazing, huge choice of food, cake and beverages.Friendly and helpful staff.

Good place to shop for Christmas items

well was expecting a nice hot breakfast, instead people queing with there breakfasts are waiting just for there coffees so had cold food quite discusting. why in a busy place would you do this the food is covered but dosent keep it hot the toast is cold and totally awful. the coffee was not very hot either really poor experience. please improve your services i will not be returning

Great selection of plants and very helpful staff. On another matter, try the cheese scones!

Lovely garden centre and great restaurant!

Visited for first time and what a place for Christmas. Every tree and decoration you could ever need and loads more besides. Definitely a great place to spend and hour or so.

Just about everything you need at Haskins. All plants, gifts, loads of Christmas trees and other ornaments. Really good coffee shop as well!

I visited Haskins the other afternoon to enjoy a lovely lunch out with one of my best friends. When we arrived the restaurant was heaving with nearly every table taken and those that were free had not been cleared or cleaned. Nevertheless, we found a table cleared the mess from it ourselves before heading up to the counter to choose what we were having for lunch. We both had a hot lunch (well it was hot when we were handed it by the lady behind the counter) but by the time we had queued & paid for it both lunches were luke warm! There seemed to be very few staff in general but especially staff clearing tables. By the time we had finished our lunch and coffees the restaurant had significantly cleared of customers but when we looked round there was not one table that wasn’t dirty and covered in debris, this not only looks unsightly but is extremely unhygienic & customers should not have to clear their own table before they can sit down. And it still means customers are having to eat from a dirty table! With Christmas on the way & the increase in footfall that comes with it, Haskins you really need to get your act together!!

Brilliant garden centre, excellent food and our little one loved the christmas lights.

Met a friend for light lunch, midweek. Lunch itself was ok, but finding a table was awful. None were clean, all still loaded with previous people's leftovers. Very minimal staff clearing tables, looked very messy considering recent refurbishment. Christmas is coming and more staff are definitely needed.

Very pricey but then all other garden centres are

Had a great day at Haskins. Plenty of space to park. Light and spacious interior with garden furniture and lifestyle accessories. Wheelchair friendly walkways and good toilet facilities. Add a huge selection of garden plants and water features in a easy to shop outside area. Team on hand to advise with any questions. Phew...then the food !...roasts, salads, cakes and coffee. Spoilt for choice .Haskins has now had a new revamp in the food and coffee shop area, New chairs, lighting, wallpaper and paint being used to great effect in this retail space. Now transformed into a winter wonder land with a large selection of xmas gifts and decorations.

Plenty of car park spaces. Huge shopping area, lots of gardening options and also gifts and food . Restaurant food is delicious lots of different choices and good value

Great c h ristmas display here. Food h all pretty good choices

I love Haskins. The Christmas decorations were up and it’s like a magical wonderland. The home section is amazing and the food court area is vast with lots of choice and all very tasty.

Always busy,lovely selection of cakes and scones.Bit pricey but plenty to see

Really lovely place to browse, great Sunday lunch and good value for money. Loved it.

Fully ramped up for Christmas with all sorts of gifts and things to do with Christmas. Quite busy but not too much so.

Man in till in such a rush did not take order correct - wife asked for two small decaf coffees, one latte and other americano. Got two mediums and neither decaf…..what a shamble’s….

Great shop, even if not looking to buy worth a visit to the cafe just to try the cake selection......divine!

Always a good place to visit for all

I visited to check out the Christmas stuff, early I know, but I was looking for something specific, so I needed to get in early. The Christmas decorations, as always, are lovely, and the displays are very well put together. They are on the pricier side, which for some items is good as the price is reflective of the quality. However, some is overpriced and can buy the item elsewhere or on line for half the price. All that aside, a visit to haskins is always a pleasure to food in the restaurant, is fantastic, can recommend the breakfast, and also the cakes are huge!!

A great place to meet up over coffee and a chat warm and welcoming highly recommended.

As always good. Christmas layout is splendid. Had coffee and cake

I love to walk inside Haskins!!! All displays looks amazing. There are a very big selections of everything!

Lovely place to have lunch n browse Cant leave without buying something!

Went with a friend for lunch, we had the carvey option. My goodness what value for money and delicious. Definitely 5 star.

Love Haskins! Food is delicious and portion sizes are very generous. The staff are amazing. Especially Nic.She pays close attention to customers and makes us feel very welcome.She even got us a bigger plate of beans when my little niece wanted some.The staff are always working hard and always have smiles on their faces.I come here every week with my family as we love it so much. We love having a shop around after eating.... especially at Christmas time as the lights are amazing!

Food is delicious, especially the cakes as well as being very generous sizes! The staff are very welcoming and helpful. They are constantly cleaning tables and makeing sure everything is ok while offering their help, Nic especially pays close attention to her customers and their needs, she is quick to help and reassure, my daughter dropped a glass and Nic was there straight away making sure everyone was ok and cleaning up the glass while reassuring us it wasn't a problem, she is very friendly and approachable.

Expensive but good for Xmas ideas

I have been visiting this Garden Centre for nearly twenty years, and every visit is so enjoyable. The outdoor area is very spacious and full of lots of palm trees and flowers to admire. Also a wonderful selection of garden statues to look at, with something to suit all tastes and budgets. The indoor shop has so much to look at and is ideal for choosing a gift for someone. The Christmas display here is truly out of this world, the best I have ever seen, and great for children as well as all ages. The restaurant has recently had a full refurbishment and looks amazing. It can get quite busy on Saturdays, but still possible to find a seat, as the area is so huge. I always order the large latte here, as the mug they serve it in is huge, therefore reasonable value for money. Good variety of cakes to suit most tastes, and the rectangular shaped chocolate slice is amazing, very rich and luxurious, and therefore reasonable value for money. One of the restaurant team members, called Nic, is without a doubt, one of the loveliest people I have ever come across. She is incredibly friendly and welcoming, and always makes our visit such an enjoyable one.

What a lovely garden centre! As soon as you walk in, you are faced with a wonderful Christmas display! Definitely recommend visiting just to see this. The rest of the centre has so much variety with lots of plants (obviously), toys, home ware, books, clothes, gifts and more. The cafe was amazing! Loads of choice, a massive cake counter, Costa Coffee and a large variety of cold and hot food. The toilets were really clean and modern too. This garden centre is a bit on the pricey side but that being said, you get what you pay for, and this garden centre is really well maintained, plenty of staff, and feels bright and welcoming. The Hobby Craft next door is very handy too and a very very short walk from the garden centre :)

Called in today for coffee and 1 packet of jammy dodgers 2 biscuits, amazed at the price £2.10 , in marks and spencer full packet of biscuits £ 1 .

It's such a lovely place to wander about it. The Christmas displays are up, and it's such a joy to walk around. To top off, the food is always delicious at the cafe. Staff friendly and always willing to help.

Great cafe and very well stocked garden centre

Lovely Christmas display. Great outdoor seating area, where we could take the dogs while we had coffee

Nicely laid out. Very clean toilets. The restaurant was full, so unable to get food, but good excuse to return. Friendly helpful and knowledgeable staff.

One of my happy places. Especially at Christmas

Had plenty in stocks and very good quality

Was great to visit. I've never seen such a big garden centre cafe

Excellent stock of plants but full of Chinese tat at the moment, Christmas goods.

The most over priced garden centre I have been to. Full of pensioners having extremely over priced teas,forget the garden plants.

Delicious Lasagne Café is much quieter now, thank goodness… Great place for Calendars…

Very nice garden centre and cafe only issue brought a tea mug within a week handle fell off

We stopped for a quick bite in the cafe. Nice panini's and fries. It's partially self serve but the queues move quickly so even if busy you get your food quickly. Not cheap but nice food with an outdoor seating area.

found hair in my food how ridiculous we told the manager she said she'd send us a voucher which has been two weeks, not very nice trying to give us money to make us forget that there was a literal hair on my food!

We booked a high tea today The staff were amazing so friendly and helpful. So many cakes need a box to take them home . Which the gladly supplied could not tank them enough.

Lovely place to lunch but very expensive

Only go here if you want to be utterly shafted or youre a minted codger with unlimited pensions.

Large garden centre on the outskirts of Ferndown. Large selection of plants and other garden related items. The coffee shop is nice too, wide selection of cakes, meals and hot drinks. Only criticism I do have is it feels like a motorway service station, quite noisy and usually very busy, theres other garden centres locally that are a bit more intimate and relaxed.

It's disguising that they allow birds into the restaurant. The staff didn't care to remove them. Health & safety at its worst!!

A big garden centre which has a great homeware range, children's toys range, trinkets and jewellery, cards, gift wrap and fabulous garden indoor and outdoor range of plants and water features. You can also buy aggregate, soil, bark, trellises and ceramic pots here. The staff are really friendly and helpful. There is also a really large restaurant here which is very well presented, with lots of different areas to sit with family, friends, work colleagues - or, just to come by yourself and have a cuppa is a good experience too. The food, hot and cold, is also very tasty, with a nice, varied range for all tastes. A top tip - Haskins start to have their late night opening towards Christmas around November time onwards - bring the little ones to enjoy their shop displays and large animated figures - they will have a lovely time!

Very enjoyable afternoon as always.

Good selection of things to look around. We had a lovely meal, it was very filling and very tasty. The service was good. Very reasonably priced.

A wonderful selection of plants, clothing outlets, books, puzzles, gifts, homeware & a fabulous restaurant for excellent coffee, teas & meals & delicious cakes, scones & tasty treats!

Had a Rum baba or what was meant to be for a treat.Well this was not a Rum baba as I know.It was soaked not in Rum sryup but more like a sugar syrup no taste of Rum and should have been a yeast dough....more like a sponge.Very dissapointed

Nice garden center but getting quite expensive. The restaurant is fantastic but very busy

Very good garden centre with good range of plants and garden equipment. Outside area large portion is covered. No lawnmowers or heavy garden machinery. Prices are higher than some but quality good. Some fashion clothes, pet equipment also sold as well as kitchen ware ornaments etc. Visited on 3rd September to find large area of indoor area screened off to prepare for Christmas decorations, seems to get earlier every year.

Good choice of breakfast items, which you can pick yourself, not the cheapest place but good quality

Nice place to wonder around and browse, bought some Hawkstone beers. Cream tea was very nice too.

Lovely choice of plants and ornaments. The self-service Cafe has a wide selection of food. Desserts absolutely delicious.

Eaten here many times but on this occasion the food was very poor

Foods nice but just full of snobby people buying overpriced plants and tat

Plants and garden furniture expensive but cafe surprisingly reasonable. Great soup and cakes. Sandwiches looked amazing but saved them for next time

Excellent choice of foods, but the garden centre part really good, though a bit pricey.

Nice food , good coffee also a clean and tidy

Fantastic cafe/restaurant. Goat cheese salad was nicely presented, delicious, healthy and good value too. Nice outside seating, loads of seating space. Great variety of everything they sell, food clothes, plants, garden, beer/cider. My family like it here, so do I now.

Large garden centre which also sells gifts and clothing. Excellent cafe. Not the cheapest garden centre in the area and they don't seem to have a loyalty scheme. Plenty of choice though.

Great Garden centre. Expensive stuff and garden furniture.

Very good for all sorts of plants furniture

Excellent café with plenty of choice. The food was delicious and not over priced. It was very busy for midweek. I had homemade mushroom soup with a chunk of olive bread. Excellent taste and plenty of soup.

Staff were very helpful and took time to help us finding what we needed

Wonderful place, nice food, drinks and plants, always an enjoyable experience.

what a n8ce place to go on your day off

Nice garden centre. However don't visit here if you have a dog and its raining as dog owners won't be able to have a coffee/tea/cake as the terrace is uncovered unlike thier plants. We were going to purchase a few items but as we were unable to have refreshments we left. We noticed a few pet owners doing the same. Perhaps the management might like to consider partially covering it.

The scone & coffee was great but I wouldnt have liked to have been the people behind us in the queue waiting with their hot food for drinks & pay. It took so long theirs would have got cold.

Met up with new friends & family

went for a coffee and scone when passing great

Nice setting with plenty of space but why is the food so bad. I eat out a lot and I would love to enjoy a meal at Haskins.They try hard but just can’t seem to get it right. Every now and again I think I will give them another try, ever hopeful. This time I had a toasted sandwich of turkey, bacon and goats cheese sounded nice but the bacon was poor quality, the turkey was dry and there was one tiny piece of goats cheese. Expensive and very disappointing. I live locally but will not waste my money again. You can get a similar toasted sandwich at The Hiker Cafe, Hengistbury Head and it is amazing with lots if goats cheese. It makes me so cross when Haskins charges a premium for their toasted sandwiches, salads etc and they are crap with some weird combinations.

Expensive, but very nice and very well made product's. Everything you would need, is there, but to be fair, I do love to see what other businesses have on offer 🤷... Good food as well, so if you plan to shop. This, Centre is a nice, place to go and do your gardening. 🐝♥️🎉

14 of us met in the restaurant. We had pre-booked a table and we had loads of time to chat and eat lunch. My quiche and salad was home made and a unique mix of flavours in the salad Ice cream was great but rather expensive. £3.99 for 2 scoops. Staff lovely

To expensive dearest garden centre in the area

We booked afternoon tea for my elderly mum's birthday. Very impressive selection of sandwiches and cakes plus unlimited tea all served on lovely China. The staff couldn't do enough for us - frequently checking that we were OK, had everything we needed etc. Everyone working that day (25th July) was great but Nic was particularly wonderful.

Lovely garden centre with great home accessory department. Lovely restaurant serving delicious variety of cakes & scones & wonderful meals from pizza to roasts.

There's a very large and interesting catalogue of indoor and outdoor plants and I was surprised by the quality of the plants, all of them were kept well there wasn't any sign of pests or diseases in any plants, some were just freshly watered, there's this really nice 3 for 11 mini house plant offer with really interesting options! The outdoor plants option also had some really really nice plants that weren't too expensive and the café has really nice food with good portions I was surprised by how nice and big was the roast dinner!

Great place to take, the old folk. For a Saturday afternoon. Loads of plants for sale. Nice restaurant as well Xxx

Well I arranged for an Afternoon Tea here today 23/07/24. And oh my goodness five stars isn’t enough. My family enjoyed it so very much. My mum and Auntie especially. When we arrived we were shown to our table which was laid with blue tablecloth, napkins and fine china. And the food itself was just gorgeous 🥰❤️🥰❤️ we all had enough to bring a take away box home with us too. Excellent service, excellent choice of foods and definitely value for money. We were made to feel really special and lots of people using the restaurant were impressed and made lovely comments 🥰🥰🥰

Overpriced and ridiculously sickly cakes.

Went here for breakfast with work, and was really impressed by the quality and quantity and at a reasonable price thank you

Was very disappointed to find out that Haskins allow their staff to work on the showroom floor with Covid. This was on Saturday 20 July. I wasn’t going to write this review until I’d heard back from the manager following my email but I haven’t had an acknowledgement let alone an explanation. Lots of older and vulnerable people visit Haskins for plants or to meet for coffee and in my opinion, they have a duty of care to those people, and their own staff, to minimise the risk of spread. If they insist people work when they are positive with covid, put them out of the way of customers and staff. My father is in a care home and it would be disastrous if I took Covid in. Luckily I didn’t take the item the sales assistant was handing me as, due to the fact he was wearing a mask, I asked if he had covid. He confirmed he did. He was on a desk dealing directly with the public. Disgraceful! This wasn’t in the restaurant, it was on the main sales floor.

Great place for garden shopping

Today we tried their carvery. I have to say it was very tasty and restaurant area was kept clean with tables cleared away very quickly

Quite pricey for some things but lovely place and shop here often.