Green-fingered twins, who failed to thrive on a factory assembly line, are splashing out on a £1m expansion programme at their garden centre.

Richard, right, and Nigel Wallbridge at Yarnton Garden Centre

Richard and Nigel Wallbridge, 59, the founders of Yarnton Nurseries, near Oxford, have already spent £320,000 on the first phase of expanding their business by installing automatically opening side areas to the covered section of the centre.

Now they are investing another £340,000 in automatic doors and block paving in the plant area, and a new automated irrigation scheme - and the spending is set to continue.

Nigel said: "If you had told us we would be spending up to £1m here when we started up in 1968, we would have laughed.

"In those days we worked 24 hours a day growing lettuces and tomatoes in a few greenhouses and heating them with coal at £7 a tonne. We achieved a turnover of just £3,000 a year."

Now they have 80 employees on their books, 30 of whom work full time.

At 16 the twins left Wheatley Secondary Modern School and joined Pressed Steel's factory at Cowley, Oxford, as toolmaker apprentices.

Nigel said: "We longed for the open air and saved money. With the help of our parents and the bank we bought 12 acres in Yarnton for £10,500 and started the business."

They gave up growing lettuces and tomatoes in 1973 when Britain entered the Common Market and found they could not compete with cheaper imports from Spain and Holland.

Nigel said: "Those were hard times but we learned that we had to diversify to survive."

Their new direction led to today's garden centre.

Nigel added: "The challenge now is to compete with the multiples. Where we win is still that we are a family business and we have great customer loyalty. The bank likes that too.

"The secret of the centre is to make it pleasant. People can spend a long time here, perhaps in the cafe, while they decide to buy something big."