Thursday night’s ITV consumer programme about garden centres and the items on BBC Breakfast on Bank Holiday Monday didn’t throw up any issues we are unaware of, and certainly they are issues as an industry we are all concerned about and working towards solutions and improvements.
The ITV programme was unfortunately typical of consumerist TV that the programme failed to give a balanced perspective as to the great things about garden centres. Surely some mention should have been made about the benefit they bring by enabling the nation’s gardeners to grow plants that have a positive environmental and emotional benefit to society.
This morning on BBC Breakfast they focused on the peat issue and gave plenty of mentions to peat free alternatives.
So far, from the garden centres we have spoken to the feedback from customers is quite negligible, possibly because many people are away on holiday, or just not in the gardening groove at the moment.
Neil Gow from Fresh@Burcot Garden Centre told GTN Xtra: "I think the only people who watched the programme were probably those involved in the industry who were lucky enough to be home from work that early! We caught it on catch up.
"James Barnes did well not to rise to the bait. The programme was out of date by a couple of years and such a missed opportunity to promote the benefits of horticulture and gardening. The programmes was biased and one sided as you would expect. Sadly today there is no news unless it is bad news these days and negative comment!
"This is a great opportunity for the HTA and our friends at Spun Gold TV to make a positive sequel showing and promoting all the benefits of plants, gardening and horticulture. I bet there would be enough sponsorship raised around our industry to fund it? You might even find enough allotment holders, even in Yorkshire, to tell the benefits!!
"I suspect we the trade got a bit excited about the possible negative impact of such a programme and frankly it was about as much a none event as Brexit or the Millennium Bug!!"
Adam Wigglesworth of Ayletts Nurseries said: "The rush to peat free 10 years ago set the whole peat free debate back by years. We are not and must not be complacent about being better. As soon as we can we must give the consumer the choice of good products at good prices."
The problems caused by the initial surge of moving to peat free were underlined by martin Stewart: "Back in 2013 we moved all of our production nursery to Peat Free growing media from green waste. That costs us and the environment thousands as the whole years crops were swamped with nettles and wasted. We've been very wary ever since but this could be a game changer. I now don't see any need to sell products that are for soil conditioning that contain peat."
Andy Bunker at Altons reports: "From my area, outside and plants I've had absolutely nothing from customers. All the conversation has been from the trade, with the feeling being it was not quite as damming as first feared."
Gary Carvasso of Coolings who re-opened Wych Cross garden centre on Saturday said: "No one has mentioned it as yet, although generally customers are becoming quite passionate about our eco credentials and whilst appreciating what we are doing they will soon expect even more I am sure. We won as you may know a few weeks ago, out of 50 other commercial entrants’ in the Kent in Business excellence award for environment."
At Baytree Garden Centre in Spalding, Nigel Wallis told us: "I have not had one customer say anything to me about the program!"
What has been your feedback from customers and how do you think we, as an industry, should be taking advantage of this impetus to reduce peat usage in gardening? Please use the comments button below or e-mail trevor.pfeiffer@tgcmc.co.uk
GTN Bestsellers Top 50 sales volumes compared to the same week last year (week 33)
Garden Products - up 33%
Growing Media - down 19%
Wild Bird Care - up 1%
Veg-2-Gro - down 18%
All Plants Index - down 26%
All Items Index - down 2%
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