Garden Centre Group advises of strong trading

Horticulture Week has reported that The Garden Centre Group’s head of horticulture, Tim Clapp, has said good weather and deals have had a positive impact on sales.

A Sun newspaper geranium promotion combined with spring saver deals and favourable weather has resulted in "some of the strongest trading that we have seen" at The Garden Centre Group, head of horticulture Tim Clapp has said.

Furniture, plants and gardening products are performing well, with shrubs and pot bedding "performing particularly strongly".

The comments follow the Garden Centre Association’s (GCA) Barometer of Trade (BoT) results for April, which show that April sales of outdoor plants increased by 11.87 per cent and seeds by 15.99 per cent against April 2012.

Garden sundries were up 12.8 per cent, furniture and barbecues up 5.83 per cent, hard landscaping up 22.7 per cent and catering up 6.48 per cent. Overall sales were up 7.62 per cent for the month.

GCA chairman Peter Burks said: "We have had a testing few months with unseasonably cold weather and we were all relieved to see some sunshine in April.

"Because people weren’t able to be out in their gardens before April we saw a huge surge in sales. Gardeners were itching to get out planting.

"Although our members had a good month in April they need strong sales to continue to be able to recoup any losses from the past few months. The overall year to date figures, calculated at the end of April, stand at 9.03% down.

"We’ve had a good start to May so we are remaining optimistic."

Source : Matthew Appleby – Horticulture Week
www.hortweek.com