Marcia Brady has grown up and she
’s an avid gardener! Well, if you go by information from the
garden industry, Marcia is indeed gardening – right along with Greg
and the rest of the Brady clan. According to garden industry data,
74 percent of home gardeners are women. Eighty percent are married,
40 percent work full-time and 30
percent are retired. Gardeners are also a pretty affluent
group…
Marcia Brady has grown up and she’s an avid gardener! Well, if you go by information from the garden industry, Marcia is indeed gardening – right along with Greg and the rest of the Brady clan.
According to garden industry data, 74 percent of home gardeners are women. Eighty percent are married, 40 percent work full-time and 30 percent are retired. Gardeners are also a pretty affluent group. Gardeners start at a household income of $30,000 and up, then index higher than the U.S. average at $100,000+, which is double the U.S. average. Most home gardeners pick up the hobby when they buy their first house, which is usually around the age of 32.
Speaking of gardening as a hobby, gardening is rated the number-one leisure activity in the U.S. Lawn and garden sales hover around $26 billion. By contrast, golf-related sales are around $18 billion. Today, 70 million households garden.
The majority of home gardeners spend their gardening time on three activities:
• Lawn Care. Sixty-four percent say that mowing and planting turf is their number-one gardening activity.
• Flowers occupy time, including insect, weed and disease control.
• Water gardening is becoming more popular.
How much time to you spend in your garden each week? This study found that most home gardeners spend between seven and 10 hours in the garden per week during the spring and summer. So-called “devoted” gardeners spend 20 to 30 hours a week gardening.
The top 10 reasons for gardening include enjoying the outdoors, getting exercise and relaxing. “Practical” considerations like improving property value or producing food for the family barely register on the gardener’s scale.
The majority of home gardeners want solutions to any garden problems. Convenience is king. They also pick up trends very easily, but they need lots of good gardening advice. Possibly due to the latter is the somewhat surprising finding that 61 percent of home gardeners prefer a local garden center or nursery. Big box stores barely registered on the survey. For items like fertilizers, chemicals and soil, however, gardeners are more inclined to shop at the big box stores. For good, accurate advice on what is wrong with their lawn or what is killing a certain plant, home gardeners will go straight to the local nursery.
Perhaps the reasoning behind shopping choices is even more enlightening. Gardeners shop at garden centers for quality and selection. Home improvement-type places get the nod for price and selection. Hardware stores offer convenience and selection, while grocery stores are rated well for convenience and price.
Keith Muraoka lives and works in Gilroy. His award-winning column has been in this newspaper since 1984. E-mail him at: ga********@jp*.net, or write him in c/o Morgan Hill Times, P.O. Box 757, Morgan Hill, CA 95038.
