More than one in ten Britons who have a garden never spend any time tending to it, according to a consumer study.
The survey, commissioned by Poundland to launch its new ‘In The Garden with Charlie Dimmock’ range, found that despite a quarter (26%) claiming to love spending time in their garden, one in five (21%) don’t have the time for it, while nearly a quarter (23%) don’t know where to start and find it overwhelming.
While a significant majority (79%) are confident when it comes to mowing the lawn, one in five (23%) cited lack of knowledge as the main barrier to rolling their sleeves up in the garden. In fact, nearly three quarters (73%) of would-be gardeners admit to not knowing how to maintain a window box, while well over half do not know how to grow their own veg (60%) and a third (33%) claim to not know how to weed.
Fair weather gardeners
Well over a quarter of respondents (28%) will only set foot in the garden when it’s warm outside meaning they will miss the key planting milestones in the gardening calendar. In fact, 15% claim to have no clue as to the best times in the year to plant while a further 15% view gardening as a chore.
The fuchsia is bright
Expert gardener and TV personality Charlie Dimmock said: “I am quite surprised that so many people feel that gardening isn’t for them without giving it a try! Gardening doesn’t need to be complicated or overwhelming – making it affordable and accessible makes gardening enjoyable and satisfying: a simple hanging basket and window box is something that everyone can achieve for minimal cost and maintenance. This is one of the main reasons why I am working with Poundland’s new ‘In The Garden’ range. With so many Poundland stores across the UK they are much handier to get to than out of town garden centres and hopefully that will encourage people to take up gardening.”
Poundland CEO Jim McCarthy said: “Our customers have been telling us for some time that the cost and lack of experience can put them off gardening. ‘In The Garden with Charlie Dimmock’ has been developed to help these customers, and Charlie’s involvement has been key to ensuring that we create a range by a gardener for gardeners. We know the range will be very popular and hope it encourages and inspires more people to take up gardening.”
