Re: Gardening is Up

**Pat Meadows p*@meadows.pair.com**

On Tue, 11 Apr 2006 19:27:44 -0500, you wrote:

>Susan McCoy wrote (in part about the NGA annual survey):
>
>> However, even though do-it-yourself spending as a whole was down 4%, the
>> study reports that nine out of 16 categories in the lawn and garden
>> industries were up, including:
>> *        Lawn care retail sales increased 9%, from $8.887 billion to
>> $9.657
>> *        Flower gardening retail sales were up 10%, from $2.735 billion
>> to $3.003 billion
>> *        Vegetable gardening sales were up 9%, from $1.058 million in
>> 2004 to $1.154 in 2005
>> *        Container gardening sales increased 8%, from $1.116 million in
>> 2004 to $1.295 million last year,
>-------------------
>How accurate are these figures?  I'm very surprised that vegetable gardening 
>sales total only $1.15 million.  And, container gardening sales are a mere 
>$1.2 million, given that container gardening is so hot.  Are they counting 
>only ready-to-go, pre-planted containers in this category or is the total 
>for all container plants and materials?

I think they put periods where they meant to put commas. 

I don't see how anyone could possibly know what container
gardening sales are, however.  I own a Yahoo list devoted to
edible container gardening, and I can tell you that people
use all kinds of things for containers.  (Me too, for that
matter): dishpans, 5-gallon buckets, Rubbermaid totes, large
salad bowls.  These things would never be tracked in any way
as pertaining to container gardening.  Or the plant food you
buy for your container garden.  No one knows it's for a
container garden, or the floating row cover.

For many products, it also wouldn't be possible for anyone
to distinguish between vegetable gardening and ornamental
gardening - i.e., I buy a sack of fertilizer or compost.  No
one knows if I'm using it on my lawn or vegetable garden. 
Or if someone buys a hose:  how do you know whether they're
going to use that hose to water their lawn, veggie garden,
or both?  Or apple trees?  

So I'd really take these numbers with a very, very large
grain of salt.

>There are a couple of seed company owners and people who work for them on 
>this list.  Do your sales bear out these figures?

I'm not a seed company owner any more (we sold it), but the
numbers cannot possibly be right.  If you think about even
*one* large seed seller (say, Johnny's or Park Seeds) and
the number of employees they have, and then you think of how
many seed sellers sell vegetable seeds - there's just no way
those numbers can possibly be correct. 

Pat
-- northern Pennsylvania
"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me 
to tremble for the safety of my country...corporations have been 
enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money 
power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the 
prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the 
Republic is destroyed." -- U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864 
_______________________________________________
gardenwriters mailing list
gardenwriters@lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/gardenwriters

GWL has searchable archives at:
http://www.hort.net/lists/gardenwriters

Send photos for GWL to gwlphotos@hort.net to be posted
at: http://www.hort.net/lists/gwlphotos

Post gardening questions/threads to
&quot;Gardenwriters on Gardening&quot; &lt;gwl-g@lists.ibiblio.org&gt;

For GWL website and Wiki, go to
http://www.ibiblio.org/gardenwriters