ACCORDING to a recent survey by the Royal Horticultural Society, the number of front gardens that have been paved over or laid to gravel in the last 10 years has tripled – and now account for a quarter of all houses.

The manicured front lawn is seemingly a disappearing feature of UK streets and roads. Does this tell us anything about the nation’s appetite for gardening? Not really. Many of the homes in what we like to call suburbia, were built at a time when most households only had one car (or no car).

Looking around the small development where I live in Salisbury, built relatively recently in the 1970s, the norm then was for one car.  Today, it is increasingly usual to see two cars, or occasionally three, having to be accommodated – with the necessary adaptions having to be made.

But whilst new-build estates often have limited back gardens, that is not true of many of the houses built between the wars or post-war, many of whom have reasonable sized rear gardens.

Again, the nature of the British garden has changed. Grow you own has faded from popularity. How many Merry Tillers did you used to sell? How many cultivators do you shift today?

Today the rear garden is there to relax in, to entertain and to enhance the look and the value of the property.

Contrary to what many will think, the greatest increase in spend in the garden is amongst the 25-35 years old. A recent survey (yes, yet another) reported in the Daily Mail (so it must be right), this group spend around £750 a year on their outdoor space compared with under £400 for other age groups.

Whilst you might find that surprising, it does perhaps highlight missed opportunities for dealers who tend to identify their core customer base as being those of advancing age with time on their hands and an appreciation of good old fashioned service.

We ignore the new breed of younger householders at our peril.  They have the disposable income, and they are equally susceptible and impressed by good service as anyone else, and perhaps even more so in this age of self-service tills and automated systems.

I’ve said many times, so I’ll say it again.  As an industry and collectively, we do not shout loudly enough about our products, our services and ourselves.  Just because we have bequeathed the volume and low-cost market for outdoor power equipment to the box-shifters, it is no reason not target the new generation of gardeners. 

After all, they will be the customers of tomorrow if our industry is to have a viable future – and any form of elitism will ultimately be self-defeating.