2022 Survey Results: We Asked Gardeners About Their Garden Expenditure and the Economy

Written by Hannah Miller. Published to Hannah’s Corner. Updated: 10th of November 2022.

Our editors publish helpful guides and reviews learnt from years of experience. They also conduct polls and questionnaires to gather insights from our site’s visitors.

Hannah Miller

Survey 1

For our first survey we started with a simple question; we asked 1963 people if they thought they would spend more or less money on their garden in 2023 compared to 2022:

The response was as we expected, only 12% stated that they would spend more, 14% thought their spending would remain unchanged while 74% planned to spend less.

Survey 2

For survey 2, we asked 2245 people what they will be prioritising their garden spending on in 2023.

We listed 8 options to choose from:

• New plants
• Plant and lawn care products
• Tools and equipment
• Outdoor cooking
• Hard landscaping and ornaments
• Furniture
• Fruit and veg
• Houseplants

Each respondent was permitted to select up to 4 options.

Just over 70% of the respondents stated that buying new ornamental plants and purchasing products to care for existing plants and lawns were top priorities.

Houseplants, growing fruit and veg and garden furniture were least important.

Tools and equipment ranked fairly high with 6.9% of the votes.

Survey 3

For survey 3, we wanted to gauge how confident the respondents felt about the future of the economy and when their garden expenditure would return to normal levels.

We gave the 1850 respondents 5 options to choose from:

1. Up to 1 year
2. 1-2 years
3. 2-3 years
4. 3-4 years
5. 4+ years

The vast majority (60%) of the respondents felt that their spending would return to normal levels within 1-3 years.

14% were even more optimistic and felt that their expenditure would normalise within a year.

18% felt that it would take 3-4 years for the cost of living crisis to improve enough for their garden spending to reach pre-crisis levels.

8% were very pessimistic and felt that it would take more than 4 years.

Survey 4

For survey 4, we wanted to see if the respondents had considered growing fruit and vegetables to save money.

Very few people grow their own food in the UK and US but with the cost of living crisis and food inflation at record levels, we wanted to see how many of the respondents had considered this.

Note that we didn’t ask if the respondents were planning to grow their own food, only if they had considered it within the last 12 months to save money.

The results were a surprise for us.

In survey 2, only 4% of the respondents stated that spending money on growing food would be a priority for them in 2023, but in survey 4, an incredible 36% of them indicated that they had considered growing food to save money within the last 12 months.

As expected, 4% stated that they already grew their fruit and vegetables.

Survey 5

For survey 5 we wanted to see if the respondents had tried to cut down on their garden expenditure by growing ornamental plants from seeds or cuttings.

Garden sales of plugs and established plants vastly outweigh the sale of seeds and many gardeners do not have the knowledge or patience to grow from seeds or cuttings. However, given the cost-saving potential, we wanted to see how many gardeners had saved money by growing from seed or cuttings within the last 12 months.

Methodology

These surveys were conducted between the 23rd of September and the 1st of November 2022.

Visitors to our gardening website were selected at random and upon leaving the website were shown a popup offering them the opportunity to answer a question in return for an entry into a competition to win a £250/$300 Amazon voucher.

The competition was open to residents of the UK and the US.

86% of the respondents were based in the UK.

We asked for the following information:

• Full name
• Country of residence
• Email address
• Answers to a randomly selected survey

Notes

All of the survey respondents were either gardeners or at least someone interested in their garden.

The results provide valuable insights into how gardeners feel about the economy and their garden expenditure, but they may not reflect the UK or US populations as a whole.

For example, 22% of the respondents stated that they had grown ornamental plants from seeds or cuttings within the last 12 months to save money.

This should be interpreted as 22% of gardeners have grown ornamental plants from seeds or cuttings within the last 12 months to save money. It’s unlikely that 22% of the general population has grown plants from seeds or cuttings within the previous 12 months.

Similar caution should be applied to the results of the other surveys, all of which are surveys of gardeners (or at least those that have an interest in their gardens).

Use Our Data

You are more than welcome to publish this data and the results of our surveys on your blog, website, publication or social media.

The graphics are subject to Creative Commons CC BY-SA 4.0 so if you wish to copy and republish them, please provide a link credit to diygardening.co.uk as attribution.

Thank you.