Or will the rest of May send sales soaring into summer? For the first time in two months garden centre total sales volumes have dropped seriously below last year’s levels, according to Epos data analysed by GTN Bestsellers.

The week that ended on the Sunday of the May Day Bank Holiday weekend was down 21% on the same week last year. GTN Bestsellers has been doing some ‘midseason’ analysis and the chart (below) of monthly sales volumes over the past six years indicates that 2014 is much more of a ‘normal’ year, similar to those we had in 2009 and 2010.

That bodes well for the rest of the year, but May is usually the biggest month of the first half of the year in terms of garden centre sales volumes, so it is all to play for, especially when many of this month’s sales items are outdoor products.

Cumulatively, this year’s sales totals are running higher than the previous two years, but we shouldn’t get carried away – we’re only on a par with volumes achieved in 2009 and 7% behind the volumes in 2011.

A check on the Met office website tells us that April 2011 was particularly warm, which may account for the high sales levels, and then we had a really wet May in the North and West and a particularly dry one in the South and East.

We now need a warmer than usual May everywhere with some rain, but not too much. Shall we all start praying now?

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

• Garden Products – down 18%
  
• Veg-2-Gro – down 30%
  
• Growing Media – down 35%
  
• All items index – down 21%

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