Rising costs force innovation at garden centres
Britons spent around £8bn on garden products in 2023, with most purchases made at one of the UK’s 1,400 garden centres. During the Covid-19 lockdown, the Government identified the sector as an ‘essential business’, allowing plant retailers to re-open from mid-May 2020, which led to an estimated uplift of three million new gardening shoppers.
However, since that pandemic gardening boom, the sector is facing new challenges: stringent new biosecurity controls have added to the cost of plant imports, high energy prices, increased staff costs and impending legislation on the use of horticultural peat.
“Costs have gone up by as much as 45% in the last five years,” says Peter Burks, Chief Executive of the Garden Centre Association (GCA). “That’s a massive increase for…
