Kent garden centre bosses have recorded their busiest day's trading ever, as sunny weather brought them a much needed boost.

The sunny May Day bank holiday was the most successful day recorded in the 14-year history of Gravesend’s Millbrook Garden Company.

And the centre’s sales figures for the first two weeks of May ended 50 per cent up on the same period last year.

The boost brought welcome respite to the industry, after a rainy March and April kept gardeners indoors at a time when they are traditionally splashing out on their plots.

Millbrook operations director Tammy Woodhouse said that during May’s first bank holiday weekend, 7,200 six-packs of summer bedding plants went through the tills at the family-owned centre at Southfleet, Gravesend.

She said: "It was absolutely manic. We had seven tills going all the time. People were buying trolley loads of plants and compost. Summer bedding packs - petunias, busy lizzies and geraniums - were disappearing by the minute.

"Everyone had been desperate to get out into the garden after a rainy April, and suddenly they could."

The much-needed boost went some way to help poor Millbrook sales figures in the early part of the year. Bad weather through March and April left annual sales down by 30 per cent on last year. The annual sales figure is still 20 per cent down.

Mrs Woodhouse said: "The start of May was good news for us, but we badly need a good June too."

Millbrook employs 70 full and part-time staff at Gravesend and another 30 at its other branch in Crowborough, East Sussex.

Tom Wyatt, spokesman for Wyevale, which has five garden centres in Kent, agreed that exceptionally wet weather hit trade early in the year. He said: "While the first couple of weeks of May have been good, that came on the end of what has been the most awful April.

"What we have seen is the long-awaited start of normal weather and normal spending."

Wyevale has stores in Ashford, Folkestone, Gillingham, Canterbury and Tunbridge Wells.