A report reaching us from the Common Sense Gardening Group – a UK-based affiliation of five ferts and chems suppliers keen to point up the safety of garden chemicals when properly deployed – tells us that “a huge” 47% of gardeners would like to spend less time weeding their gardens and 28% of people want to spend less time weeding their driveways.

So where does that leave the other 53% and 72% respectively. Could one conclude that they either:

• would like to spend MORE time weeding their gardens/driveways?
• OR could not spend less time on the chore because they don’t do any anyway?

As is often the case with surveys of this kind (in this case conducted by Yolo Communication amongst 1204 people in April and early May), we shouldn’t reads too much into the figures, wrapped as they are in a blanket of partisanship.

However, the figure we might actually take seriously is this:

• 39% of people questioned agreed that garden care products are safe to use when used as directed on the label.

So that’s more than 6 in 10 people who don’t agree…

Sorry chaps, but the propaganda does not appear to be working. Clearly, there’s still a lot of work to be done to convince a sceptical public in this age of increasing environmental awarenesss.