We can all recite the statistics, can’t we? I mean the percentage fall in shopping activity in December, the names of the high street retail businesses that have gone bust or been taken over, the numbers of shopworkers who have lost their jobs.
We can all recite the statistics, can’t we? I mean the percentage fall in shopping activity in December, the names of the high street retail businesses that have gone bust or been taken over, the numbers of shopworkers who have lost their jobs. Less well-known to us is what is happening to garden centres and nurseries, despite the fact that they are complex retail operations quite as much as Woolworths or Adams Childrenswear. The reason is that there are few public companies in horticulture; indeed, nearly all garden centres, as well as retail and wholesale nurseries, are classed as small or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and many of these are single-site operations. However, just because they are below the radar, doesn’t mean to say that, if you cut them, they don’t bleed or rather, if the bank won’t lend them money, they won’t go bust. And they matter to the economy. There are 2,500 garden retail outlets in the United Kingdom, the market is worth over £3 billion a year, and the horticultural sector employs 300,000 people, which is the size of the population of Wigan.
There is plenty of whistling in the dark, as you would expect and hope, since business confidence is a plant as fragile as a Morning Glory seedling. The Horticultural Trades Association (HTA), which represents the vast majority of garden retailers and ornamental plant growers, is reasonably upbeat. According to David Gwyther, Director General: ‘Our industry has always been resilient in times of economic challenge, as people retreat into [sic] the solace of their garden.’
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