Home » Plants & Animals » Plants & Trees » The Millennium Gardener

The Millennium Gardener

© Wesley Ford

Well, I guess its high time I wrote a millennium article and this seems like about the right time. Recently I came across an article in a nursery trade magazine, Nursery Retailer, on the topic of lawn and garden sales statistics. Statistics are presented for recent years and projections are made for L & G sales for the year 2000. I thought these statistics said interesting things about us gardeners and I thought I might share some of the insights I have gained and possibly some that your favorite retailer may have gained about you.

To begin with, if you live in the Mid-Atlantic area, you are right in the heart of gardening country. New York (no. 2), Pennsylvania (no. 4) and New Jersey, the Garden State, (no. 9) are all among the top 10 states in L & G expenditures. Lest the rest of America is slighted, the gardening craze is really well distributed with California coming in at number 1, Texas at no. 3 , Ohio at no. 5 with Illinois, Michigan, Florida, and Massachusetts rounding out the top 10. All in all, nationwide, we Americans spent $81.7 billion in 1999- yes that is BILLION dollars-on lawns and gardens. It seems many of us are pretty affluent, or at least we like our landscapes a whole lot. This can be interpreted that our population is aging and entering that time in life when ethereal pursuits are beginning to hold sway in our lives. This is born out by other statistical reporting services. Over 10% of these sales occurred in California, with NY following with just over 8% of the total. Hmmm states known for wealth and aesthetic pursuits? Or are they just among the largest in population? Perhaps a little of both as expenditures are somewhat disproportionate to population percentages.

So just what is this wealthy (or foolish?) and tasteful population spending their money on? Some things here may surprise us while others are more in line with what we would expect. As we would imagine, we do spend most of our hard earned dollars on Green Goods (GG). GG sales in 1999 were $21.7 billion. That's a lot of posies folks. Over ¼ of our L & G expenditures did go to plants and seed. I'm proud of my fellow gardeners for this. But would you believe the second highest segment was Chemicals. That's right , we spent $11.7 billion dollars on chemicals to protect our plants from critters and green monsters (weeds). So while we are recognizing the values that green plants provide, we really aren't too in tune with nature yet. Perhaps the learning curve will help solve that problem. Now I'm not exactly an organic gardener, but I don't spend 11 or 12 % of my garden budget on chemicals. I believe we can do better here, and enjoy our bucks more if we work to shift this one.

The copyright of the article The Millennium Gardener in Plants & Trees is owned by Wesley Ford. Permission to republish The Millennium Gardener in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.