The whole gardening industry is, as we write, enjoying a cracking start to the season and it’s a joy to see a happy smile on everyone’s face again. A burst of good weather at the right time makes all the difference to demand, and we should certainly take real comfort from the fact that the gardening public clearly do still want to spend on their gardens - at least when the weather is right - and haven’t gone away completely.

But we mustn`t just rely on the weather or forget the key lessons that we have all learnt over the last three challenging years. Some of the big underlying threats are still there - a different sort of competitive pressure on the retail side, rising costs but fixed prices on the supply side, and the possibility of house prices going down which would substantially affect our customers’ desire to spend on gardening.

There are some new challenges, too - perhaps from customers who are more environmentally aware than we ourselves are, or from the transformation in traditional retailing being caused in other sectors by the dramatic growth in e-commerce.

So let’s not relax just because the business climate for our industry appears to have improved. Now is the time, when things are going well, to make sure that we are taking the right action to reduce costs, to reinvest in better services and improving our staff. And let`s also use this breather from the pressures of the last couple of years to seriously reflect on what we`re trying to do with our businesses, what their focus should be on and what the right strategy for developing them in the future should be.

Meanwhile - make the most of what this season is offering us, but don`t forget that we still need to run our businesses even more efficiently so that we are ready for that rainy day, which is bound to come again at some point in the future.