The Coronation weekend provided the much needed boost to garden centre sales, according to analysis of weekly Epos data by GTN Bestsellers.

Reaching the highest sales volume of the year, the week saw the second 7% week on week sales growth.  As a result the GTN Bestsellers All Products Volume Index now sits at 1.8% down on 2022, 18.1% up on 2019 and 30.7% up on 2018.  As you can see from the graph above, it wasn't until this week, (week 19) in 2018 that sales really got going after "The Beast from the East" and despite the very, very slow start to that year by the end of the year sales had caught up to be up on 2017.

Prior to Coronation week, April volume sales rallied to be 0.2% up on April 2022 and 19% higher than both 2019 and 2018.  With the continual colder and wetter than normal April weather, Plant volume sales were down by 2% for the month.  Coronation week, however saw a big improvement in plant sales, up 16% week on week, to reach the highest single week plant sales volume since week 24 in 2021.