NURSERIES and garden centres across Teignbridge are struggling to cope with a massive downturn in trade after the wettest summer on record.

Staff are being laid off and thousands of unsold plants are being destroyed as businesses report takings down by as much as 15 per cent.

Tony Joyner, owner of Plants Galore, Forches Cross, Newton Abbot, says he has never known such a bad year in the 50 years his family has run the business.

And he has had to lay off 30 of his 70 staff, employed at the company's four centres.

Garden centres take on average 70 per cent of their annual turnover in April, May and June but this year, April and June had record levels of rainfall.