Heatwave conditions this month have certainly helped to give garden centre sales a boost with feeding and watering products performing well.

The GTN Bestsellers Epos data reveals that volumes have been at a higher level year on year for the past 14 weeks – in fact, 20 out of 29 weeks have been up on 2012. Looking back it was just the key weeks early on in the year that were poor!

Garden centre footfall is still particularly high at this time of year with restaurants reporting good business.

The good weather has meant that plenty of outdoor furniture and barbecues are being sold, plus surprisingly high volumes of plants. Even growing media sales are sustaining high sales levels – over the past eight weeks volumes are 39% higher than 2012, and 31% up on the same eight weeks of 2011. Gardening must be cool!

All this welcome activity poses the following questions. Is this increase in business throughout July solely down to the fact that gardeners are making up for a poor spring? Or is it more to do with garden centres making themselves a more attractive place to visit during the summer?  What do you think? Email trevor.pfeiffer@tgcmc.co.uk

GTN Bestsellers Top 50 sales volumes compared to the same week last year:

• Garden Products – up 18%
• Veg-2-Gro – down 25%
• Growing Media – up 41%
• All items index – up 17%

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