Green Shoots in Garden Centres

According to figures in The Economist, from a high point of £5 billion in 2001, spending on plants, tools and garden furniture has fallen every year since then, to around £3 billion in 2008. The arrival of recession only deepened the gloom, yet the latest figures from the Horticultural Trades Association (HTA) suggest a bumper year for garden-related expenditure is in the making.

Sales volumes were up by 21% in March and 28% in April compared with the same months a year earlier. This was not the result of deep discounting, a strategy that many other retailers have been adopting. The value of garden goods sold was 37% higher in March and 42% higher in April than a year earlier, whereas the value of all sales had increased by just 3% in April. Datamonitor, a market-research firm, reckons that gardening will continue to outperform the rest of retailing for at least the next two years.

What factors might be responsible for this? A few ideas include:

Better weather, it’s been pretty grim for much of the last two years.

Could the economic downturn actually be helping? Instead of an expensive city break, how about a weekend luxuriating in the garden? Maybe there are more redundant workers spending greater amounts of time in the garden in between jobs.

A shift in the gardening demographic: much of the growth in garden spending has come from the under-35s. One explanation is that environmentalism and thriftiness have made growing vegetables trendy, an idea that is supported by the growing shortage of allotments.