A GIANT statue of Buddha is putting a couple in good spirits for their new business.

The granite sculpture, which is 5ft 6in tall and weighs one-and-a-half tonnes, is just one of a number of features at the Paddock Farm Garden Centre, in Dalton on Tees, near Darlington.

As well as the £3,000 statue, which sits in a Japanese themed garden, owner Alyson Savage, and her husband, Graham, have developed the site into zones featuring a woodsman's cottage garden and a Mediterranean-style courtyard.

There are eight zones in total at the centre, which opens on April 20.

The couple bought the statue from a trade show in Birmingham.

Mrs Savage said: "We just fell in love with it. It is absolutely beautiful."

But the figure almost did not make it to his new home.

"It was a huge feat to get him in," said Mrs Savage. "We had already dug ponds either side of where he was going and hadn't put a bridge in.

"The fork-lift truck we used to lift it had about six inches of room on either side of the ponds. One slip and we would have lost him."

For the week after the gardens open, the couple are running a raffle of garden accessories, with proceeds going to charity.