They are places of refuge where life’s smaller dreams are grown and tended. Best laid plans of borders, hanging baskets and hedgerows take shape there, giving respite from bigger stresses and strains.

Garden centres are vitally important to the lives of many. Two out of three adults visit them regularly and they employ tens of thousands of people in a seasonal sector worth £5 billion to the UK economy.

Few could have predicted that these jolly green giants of retail would become the latest battleground in the coronavirus culture war, but that’s exactly what happened when it was revealed that garden centres will re-open in England and Wales this week.

Rather than hosting a calm debate around the practicalities, pros and cons of such a move, social media sought to fan the flames of division by imposing an ideological world view on this – and every other – facet of the lockdown.

While angry keyboard warriors on the left screamed that re-opening garden centres was nothing more than a Tory ploy to appease elderly middle-class voters, their right-wing counterparts shot back with daft accusations of addiction to subsidy and union conspiracies.

Predictably things got even more heated in Scotland, with folk on either side of the independence debate using garden centre opening in the different parts of the UK as a filter to either lionise or trash the First Minister’s entire coronavirus strategy.

How utterly depressing this all is. Not least because there is a sensible case to be made for the re-opening of the centres that has nothing to do with class, constitution or ideology, but everything to do with health and wellbeing.

As pointed out by the Royal Horticultural Society, the therapeutic nature of gardening has been utilised for hundreds of years.

As well as the physical benefits it offers (exercise without even noticing) research shows gardening reduces depression, anxiety and loneliness and increases sociability. Indeed, the NHS already prescribes it as a treatment for all sorts of physical and mental ailments. And with gyms not due to re-open any time soon, it is a pastime that offers an accessible way for many to load up on endorphins during lockdown.

I can certainly vouch for it. Like many, as I’ve gotten older gardening has become an increasingly important part of life in terms of stress relief, never more so than during the pandemic. I live in the city, in a flat, but am lucky enough to have a small shared garden; the cultivation of shrubs and plants brings colour, shape and purpose to life right now, not to mention the buzz of urban wildlife. If I hadn’t been able to mow the lawn and potter with my pots over the last few weeks I’d have gone stir crazy.

The suggestion that gardening is a solely middle-class pursuit is ridiculous and insulting. Those who don’t have a garden can still enjoy a splash of greenery on patios and balconies, in window boxes, hanging baskets and with indoor plants. They can tend allotments. Go to any deprived area in any town or city and you will see beautifully tended gardens, window boxes and allotments. Indeed, the life and colour they bring – and the produce – are perhaps more valued in poorer areas than anywhere else.

Garden centres provide us with easy access to all this, not only selling us the plants we desire but providing vital advice on how to nurture and create with them. Their cafes are social hubs for old and young alike.

And while it’s obvious that these cafes must remain closed for now, the retail side of things can surely re-open safely with social distancing measures in place, especially since large parts of most garden centres are outside.

If B&Q and Asda can sell you plants, why not Dobbies? Let’s be sensible.

I can understand why off-licences were deemed essential when lockdown came into place, but I can’t really see why garden centres were not. In many parts of Germany, which has handled coronavirus far more successfully than the UK, they have remained open throughout.

I trust Nicola Sturgeon and her team to look at the evidence and make the right call.

What bothers me most about the current tone of lockdown debates, however, is the constant need to judge the motives of others within an ideological context.

Wanting garden centres to open doesn’t make you a selfish, libertarian lockdown denier. Having doubts about it doesn’t make you a work-shy communist.

Shall we try and have a bit more sense and empathy, people? I do hope so.

All columnists are free to express their opinions. They don’t necessarily represent the view of The Herald.