Everything in the garden's rosy

The Easter Weekend is the big bonanza for garden centres, which have had a law changed just for them. ELEANOR BLACK looks at a blooming business.

Joanne's mother is coming to stay for the long weekend and she has just one hour to make her new house look like a home.

She nervously scans the two-bedroom bungalow, noting the drab carpet and water-stained walls, then jumps into her car.

But instead of heading to her favourite interiors shop or the nearest paint-and-wallpaper outlet, Joanne jogs 10 minutes later into a garden centre.

With relief, she grabs the arm of a salesman and blurts: "I need a hanging petunia basket for the balcony, yellow and purple pansies for the patio and a water feature, something not too big I can take home with me."

Joanne has just entered the age of instant gardening.

In the past decade our gardening habits have taken a huge shift. We don't have time to wait for flowers to bloom, we can't be bothered with delicate plants that need to be coddled and, oddly, we don't want to get our hands dirty as we sort through our options at the garden centre, say industry experts.

Where once gardeners were regarded as muddy magicians with skills the rest of us had somehow missed out on, now anyone with a modest budget and two hours a week can have a wonderful garden.

Garden centres have kept one step ahead of consumer trends and are reaping the rewards: $320 million turnover a year and 750,000 devotees, even by conservative estimates.

And the return to Easter Sunday trading for garden centres this year is worth an estimated $15 million.

This is one of the biggest weekends of the year for garden centres and they plan to make the most of it.

Greenfingers will be pouring in to contemplate the neat rows of potted foliage, eyecatching displays of the latest varieties from overseas, and a lot less dirt than in past years.

With the introduction of plants and related products at "mega stores" such as Mitre 10 and The Warehouse, garden centres have worked hard to maintain a point of difference, and have evolved way past plants.

Nursery and Garden Industry Association (NGIA) spokesman Bob Wynyard says that although the garden market appears to have exploded since 1990, it has actually been splintered as garden products become available at different types of retail outlets.

Now garden centres are cashing in on staff expertise, offering landscaping services and practical, personal advice rarely available in the garden section of a hardware store. They are also diversifying.

Shops that once sold only plants and a selection of fertilisers and tools are these days packed with skincare products, photo frames, pet accessories, sculptures, candles, ice creams, art prints, outdoor furniture and even, gasp, artificial flowers.

Cafes entered the scene about 10 years ago and have been a staggering success. People now judge their garden centre not just by the quality of its roses but also the consistency of its carrot cake.

Darryn Odering, director of Oderings, the biggest garden centre chain in the South Island, says garden centres have picked up new product lines to compete for weekend shoppers who, 20 years ago, had no other option for a Sunday shopping spree.

Overseeing five branches in Christchurch and three in the North Island, he has noticed that gardeners in the south are more conservative. They choose seed packets over potted plants and tend to have larger gardens to fill.

"The further north you go the more instantaneous the garden."

Darryl Price, manager of Palmers Gardenworld in Rotorua, has watched the industry embrace time-saving products in the 15 years since he got his first job at a garden centre.

He points to bright flowering plants sold in appealing six-packs with a handle which can be easily grabbed as you stroll the rows. A metre away stands a display of palms in decorative pots and ready for use - no imagination necessary.

"People like to see what they're getting. Colour sells," he explains.

His customers also prefer to browse through plants which sit on raised platforms in a minimum of soil. It is now possible to leave a garden centre without dirt under the fingernails.

Dr Sarah Todd, a researcher in consumer behaviour, agrees that people are not spending as much time in the garden as they used to, but says they are increasingly bringing garden features, such as potted plants, into the home.

While vegetable gardens are seen by many New Zealanders as too much hard work, pretty, easycare flowers are still a valued decoration for the home and outdoor spaces such as decks, which are now considered an extension of the living space.

Weekend gardeners also turn to television gardening shows for inspiration but, while they admire some of the more ambitious projects featured, will rarely undertake them.

"We like watching people doing things now instead of doing those things ourselves," Dr Todd says.

But the gardening industry, perhaps the most user-friendly of the do-it-yourselfers, is continuing to grow at an impressive rate. Garden centres made $128 million in 1987 (the first year for which the NGIA has statistics), $185 million in 1991, $234 million in 1996 and are now pulling in more than $300 million a year.

Garden centres used to be able to trade 365 days a year until retailing was deregulated in 1991 and they lost Christmas, Anzac Day, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. While the NGIA did not miss Christmas Day and Anzac Day, it has been lobbying formally since 1994 for Easter opening. Centres are still not able to open legally on Good Friday.

Mr Wynyard says the phenomenal growth of the industry has slowed considerably in the past seven years as baby-boomers aged, homeowners bought houses on smaller sections and the apartment market mushroomed.

But there is still huge market potential, he says. The average person spends only $2.20 a week on plants.

He points out that while major chains such as Kings and Palmers dominate the market, there is still plenty of room for smaller operations, especially those that offer good advice to potential gardeners who don't know where to start.

People like Joanne. She is delighted with her emergency dash to the garden centre. The water feature is gurgling in a corner of her yard.

Her balcony is unrecognisable with the addition of hanging baskets crowded with pink petunias, and the patio has been dressed up with more than a few pots of pansies.

She even bought some candles for the lounge and a frame for her mother's photo.

Hectic time for veges


Darryl Pierce, manager of Palmers Gardenworld, Rotorua:

* Harvest late-summer vegetables such as pumpkins, marrows, potatoes, onions. Don't forget to dig over the soil and dress with lime, 200g to 250g a square metre.

* Plant broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce and silverbeet seedlings.

* Sow the seeds of beetroot, broadbeans, carrots, radish, swedes and turnips.

* Divide and replant rhubarb into compost-enriched soil.

* Start preparing your garden for late-winter and early spring flowers by digging up fading summer plants, working the soil and adding compost and fertiliser.

* Now is the time to plant flowering annuals such as primulas, polyanthus, pansies, iceland poppies, stock and snapdragons.

*Old-fashioned flowers such as wallflowers and sweet peas are making a comeback. Plant from seed and look forward to masses of brightly coloured, highly perfumed flowers in spring. Feed them dried blood every four to six weeks, one teaspoon per plant. Your plants will be healthier and bloom more quickly.

Bulbs like to chill out


Katy Merrett, manager of Trelawney Garden Centre, Rotorua:

* Instead of getting your spring bulbs in the ground now, pop them in the refrigerator until the end of next month. This is called stratification and gives bulbs a false winter which will prime them for planting. This is especially effective for tulips.

* If you are expecting visitors over the weekend, this is a good time to take advantage of the sales and buy pre-planted pots full of colourful flowering plants. You can place them around your patio, deck, on a balcony, or in the corner of a room for an instant lift.

* If you are looking forward to winter soups, now is the time to plant leeks.

* Winter varieties of lettuce should be planted now.

* Now is the time to get all those favourite and delicious savoury herbs into the ground.

* Autumn is the best time of the year to plant. There is plenty of rain but the soil is still warm and plants can establish a strong root system before diverting energy for spring shoot growth.