Industry Watch: Is Gardening Hot…or Not?

By Rieva Lesonsky

Spring has sprung in many places in the country, and that means businesses related to gardening are gearing up for their busy season. Marketing Daily reports that Home Depot is planning a massive sales campaign this spring, similar to how retailers approach the Christmas holiday season. After all, “Spring is our Christmas,” Home Depot EVP/merchandising Craig Menear said in announcing the campaign.

But will gardening businesses be seeing much green this year? According to the latest National Gardening Association survey, there’s good news and bad news about the industry’s prospects.

First, the bad news. Spending on do-it-yourself lawn and garden activities declined 18 percent, to $363 per household. What’s more, total retail lawn and garden sales dropped 16 percent last year—at $30.12 billion overall, sales were the lowest they’ve been in the last decade.

Now, the good news. While spending was down, interest was up. Overall participation in lawn and garden activities increased by 2 percent last year, reaching 83 million households. A particular bright spot was food gardening, which gained for the second year in a row, growing by 21 percent. The survey also reports that although spending declined, it declined less steeply than spending in other discretionary categories. And the majority of people surveyed report they plan to spend at least as much on their yard this year as last year in most categories (the exception was lawn and landscape services).

So while gardeners are spending less on their hobby, they’re spending more time doing it. What can your business do to grab some of those lawn and garden dollars? There’s renewed interest in growing plants from seeds to save money, so consider adding seeds to your mix. More gardeners are also interested in watering less, so drought-resistant plants or desert dwellers can be good additions to your offerings.

One area of the industry that hasn’t bounced back yet is residential lawn and landscape services. The amount consumers spent to hire lawn/ landscape maintenance, landscape installation/construction, landscape design, and tree care services declined by 44 percent from $44.7 billion in 2006 to $24.9 billion in 2009, according to the survey. It remains to be seen if this is a long-term trend, or if consumers will renew spending on these areas when they have more discretionary income.

Image Courtesy: Karen Axelton

This entry was posted on Friday, April 8th, 2011 at 6:00 am and is filed under Marketing, Small Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.


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