For the first time in the Haskin Garden Centre group's 39 years of trading, turnover exceeded £4million during the month of December.
The family-owned company's four garden centres - based in Bournemouth, Southampton, Worthing and Crawley - saw a 24% increase in revenue compared with December 2011. The boost helped make up for lost sales experienced earlier in the year due to bad weather, according to Haskins chief executive Julian Winfield.

"We went all out to create our biggest and best Christmas display, and thanks to everyone involved all the planning and hard work paid off," he said. "All of our centres saw a boost to sales in many departments with the gifts section seeing a dramatic 36% rise. Our year end is in February and there is a chance that we may still hit our target turnover of £31 million."

This year the company hopes to acquire its fifth garden centre, within three hours driving distance of its Dorset head office. In the meantime it will continue to focus on investment in good service, quality and range of plants and products, as well as the enhancement of facilities.