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.’ He also believes that people are more likely to invest in their gardens when property prices are ‘under pressure’; in other words, if you cannot move house, you might as well make your garden look a bit nicer. As one publicist put it to me: ‘As people cut back on expensive holidays and new cars they will seek the sanctitude [sic] of their gardens — which may result in people visiting garden centres more often.’ It certainly may.
Mr Gwyther also says that plant sales are continuing to hold their own, especially edible plants. It is certainly true that kitchen gardening is enjoying a strong surge in popularity at the moment: vegetable seeds’ sales are outstripping those of flowers, young plants are increasingly popular, and allotment waiting lists are lengthening.
However, sales of horticultural stock (that’s everything from seeds to trees to pre-planted hanging baskets) were down in the year to September by 4 per cent over the previous 12 months; it is only possible to take comfort from that if you compare it with the drop in sales of manufactured goods — ‘big ticket’ items like garden benches, barbecues, and machinery — which fell by 19 per cent in the same period. Moreover, a lot of unfortunate things have happened since last September.
The small specialist nurseries — so beloved of really keen gardeners but, alas, no one else — will probably weather the gales most successfully. They have found trading conditions tough in the last five years, but they are family operations, on the whole, which can hunker down in bad times and which have never sold lawn mowers, anyway. They can also provide valuable expert advice to gardeners, something only on offer at the better garden centres and hardly ever at DIY ‘sheds’, let’s face it — even in prosperous times when the staff are not being laid off.
Talking of which, the employment help-line at the HTA took a steeply increased number of calls about redundancy in December. Although garden retailers have been warned of the dangers of cutting their staff, because of the effect it has on ‘the experience’, it is inevitable that they will. There are isolated reports of individual garden centres closing their doors, but it is too early to say whether this is a distinct trend; a number go bust even in better times. One of the reasons why it is difficult to generalise about garden centres is that their quality is so variable. Some are woefully short on plant range, advice, the protection of their products from the elements; even the cup of tea in the café is stewed. Others, however, offer a bright and interesting ‘free destination’, where you can cheerfully while away an entire afternoon.
As Mr Gwyther hinted, we humans have a tendency to retreat into cosy domesticity when faced with things we cannot understand or do anything much about. Last autumn, beset by fears, I spent time rather than money on my garden and, although I am strangely no richer, we are both the better for it. I intend to pass this year in the sanctitude of my garden but, at the same time, I shall also spend any spare cash on it. And I think you should, too.
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