Blue skies and sunshine brought out the Easter shoppers. Garden centres across the country reported high numbers of customers and plants flying off the shelves as tills rang up sales. Evidently, the warm and pleasant weather had made shoppers look critically at their gardens and seek ways to make them even nicer. Many shoppers had been clearly planning for the weekend, drawing up lists of plants to fulfil new planting schemes.
Sales were high in all plant areas from shrubs to bedding, herbaceous to vegetables. Every garden centre questioned said that sales were up in every category. Sally Reed at Notcutts told Commercial Grower that overall plant sales were up 32 percent, with house plants eight percent up on last year, while Jim Teague of the Garden & Leisure Group added: “The good times are back. We sold over 25,000 plug plants across our seven centres while we have sold nearly 6,000 tomato plants over the last 10 days. People have been stocking up on young perennial plants with over 4,000 one litre pots being sold.”
It was an extremely buoyant Easter that has left many feeling confident. Boyd Douglas-Davies, chief executive of Webbs of Wychbold, explained that good dry weather throughout the Easter period resulted in ‘superb sales across all gardening categories.’ Klondyke’s plant buyer Jo Cook said: “It is a nice position to be in. This was a much better Easter than the last two years; the weather was better and sales better. It has been a good spring, with good shrub sales throughout March and into April.”
Sarah Squires from Squires Garden Centre said that it had been a good weekend for gardening. “It has been a great horticultural Easter,” she exclaimed. “Plant sales have been good. At the beginning of the weekend on Friday and Saturday it was people with projects buying nursery stock. They came with shopping lists of what they wanted. By Easter Monday impulse sales were in evidence. Anything in colour went well, especially basket plants, and flowers - anything in spring colours such as yellow went flying out. People were clearly thinking ‘let’s go and see what there is available. They had got an eye for what was looking good at that moment.”
A similar pattern was to be seen at B&Q where general plant sales were described as exceptional. It reported that hardy nursery stock had seen record sales, with B&Q’s Outstanding Plants range continuing to perform well. The range includes architectural and exotic plants in four categories - Oriental, Mediterranean, Tropical and Topiary.
The warmth clearly made people begin to think ahead to summer. Shoppers were tempted to buy young plants for early summer bedding amid reminders to protect the stock from frosts. Squires reports that people were buying both spring bedding such as pansies and violas as well as early summer bedding like marigolds and lobelia. Keen gardeners have been snapping up plug plants for growing on in greenhouses. Lobelia, antirrhinums and nasturtiums proved to be the most popular.
Colour was very much in the forefront. If a plant was in flower it sold fast. All garden centres reported that shoppers were buying plants that were in flower or were attracted by brightly coloured promotional pictures. All plants with bright eye-catching colours have been disappearing fast from the shelves. Sally Reed at Notcutts indicated that blue was very popular with plants like Coporesma Pacific Night and Veronica Royal Candles selling well. Her comments were echoed by Jo Cook at Klondyke who also found anything blue was popular with shoppers. Orthopagus Nigra was attracting a lot of attention and being purchased as an architectural and contrast plant while the pretty flowers of Photina Red Robin led to large sales. “Anything in colour did well,” Reed commented.
Shrubs are selling steadily with sales of flowering shrubs high. “Winners are lavenders and some of the golden spireas or early flowering spireas. Magnolias have done well. It has been a good year for blossom as there has not been a cold snap to knock off the flowers,” said Jim Teague of Garden & Leisure.
Impulse purchases were much in evidence with any plants in flower proving good sellers. Planted containers were the biggest sellers at Dobbies Garden Centres, alongside climbers and bedding. Sales within the Klondyke chain have echoed this trend. Buyer Jo Cook explained: “Planted containers experienced quite high sales four to five years ago. Now this seems to be happening again. We are finding more customers are buying planted containers or else are choosing plants then asking our staff to plant up containers for them.”
“Impulse products are clearly very important with Premium Plants increasing in their sales participation year on year - the new branding has given customers greater confidence to use these plants in their gardens. Customers have shown real interest in Begonia Million Kisses Romance - a Wyevale exclusive for 2007 - the plant can cope with dry conditions as well as wet and does not need dead heading,” said Neil Fishlock, horticultural expert at Wyevale.
Herbs too have been selling well either as standalone plants or as planted up containers. Shoppers were looking for both culinary and decorative species. At Notcutts all varieties of Lavender as well as Rosemary Officinalis plants attracted large numbers of buyers.
There was also further evidence of the distinct move towards Grow Your Own produce. Gardeners are becoming more and more interested in this. Garden centres reported that purchases of young vegetable plants, especially cucumbers, courgettes and tomatoes were proving popular as were bags of compost to ensure they grew on satisfactorily. Wyevale saw sales of vegetables, soft fruit and top fruit reaching double-digit growth. Easter sales of tomato plants at Klondyke Garden Centres have been increasing steadily year on year.
And it was not just young vegetable plants that were selling - garden centres report that sales of vegetable seeds were increasing this Easter. In fact, sales of all types of seeds have been extremely buoyant everywhere in the country. Boyd Douglas-Davies from Webbs of Wychbold pointed out that ‘vegetable and salad seeds have been incredible this year, particularly strong across Suttons Seeds vegetables’. Gardeners, it seems, are turning back to old habits and are willing to try growing plants and flowers from scratch.
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