While garden centre sales volumes for the past two weeks haven’t matched the record levels seen last year, which was just as we came out of Lockdown #3, the aggregated sales for those weeks have been 28% higher than the average for the nine ‘normal’ years prior to the pandemic, from 2011 to 2019.

And it’s core growing activity that is seeing the biggest growth with significant gains over pre-pandemic levels being seen in the GTN Bestsellers data for core gardening products, growing media, plants and particularly young veg plants.

Could it be that the economic situation will encourage even more people to make the most of their gardens this year?

GTN Bestsellers Top 50 sales volumes compared to the same week in 2021: week 11.

• Garden Products Top 50 – down 4%
• Growing Media Top 50 – down 5%
• Veg 2 Gro Top 50 – down 5%
• Wild Bird & Wildlife Care Top 50 – down 6%

GTN Bestsellers All Sales volumes compared to the same week in 2021: week 11

• All Plants with Barcode index – down 13%
• All Items with Barcode index – down 12%

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