Gardens may be getting smaller, but there are more gardens than ever in the UK. 17.5 million households have a garden and with new homes being built every minute, this figure looks like steadily increasing – great news for the garden retailer.  Garden centres have maintained the largest share of the £3.8bn garden care market with an increase of 5% over the last four years. As for garden owners, they seem to have a lot in common! A key driver appears to be a garden they are proud of that is clean and tidy, where they can relax and entertain and they are prepared to put in a varying amount of effort to achieve this goal. However, as seen in recent HTA reports* there are different types of gardener which offers some excellent opportunities for the garden care industry. "Keen" gardeners, often over 55 with a bias towards women as the main gardening consumer, are the core shoppers of our industry. They are just as keen on the process as the end result and are passionate about their gardens therefore prepared to spend generously. "Quite keen" gardeners are more functional, spending as much time as they have to. They take pride in their garden and enjoy the final product as much as the journey, recognising their garden is very much an asset. The "marginal" gardener is more aspirational, viewing the garden as an extra room which is both functional and provides an opportunity to demonstrate style and creative flair. However a lack of time, knowledge and success will dampen their enthusiasm to spend more time in the garden and therefore in order to nurture this group of potentially "keen" gardeners, solutions need to be offered.

"We need to target this prime group of around 30% of gardening customers," explains Miranda Harris, Marketing Manager for Johnson's Lawn Seed. This evidence indicates there are more and more people enjoying the end result and not so much the process, therefore it is critical that we bring back the fun into gardening. "We have produced a DVD which purposefully makes the whole process of lawn care much more enjoyable as well as guarantees worthwhile results," concludes Harris. Another opportunity we need to be aware of is the growing number of people moving house every year. 11% of households are on the move, and as stated by Norwich Union 2006, an attractive, well kept garden will enhance the property significantly. Finally, it is critical that we realise not all customers are the same and need different products and services, therefore it is imperative that our strategy going forward meets these different needs. The DVD is available to stockists as an in-store demonstrator with a DVD player provided free of charge to retailers taking a specific Johnson's Lawn Seed promotion. The DVD is also available to consumers as a download from the Johnson's website www.johnsonslawnseed.com *Source: HTA Retail Market Analysis Report 2006/Norwich Union