Nuturing Newbies

The pandemic years saw an unparalleled expansion of gardening in North America. According to the National Gardening Association, somewhere between 15 and 18 million people picked up a trowel and got to planting. And as new gardeners broke turf to make way for ornamental plants and veggies, IGCs rode the wave, profiting from a home-bound population seeking ways to improve their environments. But questions lingered in the industry’s collective consciousness: Would the boom last? Who were these new gardeners? And would they keep gardening once their jobs and responsibilities called them back?

Those questions are the basis for Axiom Marketing’s 2024 New and Novice Gardener Study released in December 2023. Axiom surveyed 300 new and novice gardeners who reported they’d gardened four years or less, owned a home and purchased a garden plant in 2023. Of those respondents, 49% categorized themselves as casual gardeners, and 39% reported themselves to be beginner gardeners. Nearly three-quarters of respondents said they’ve been gardening for between two and four years, placing them squarely in the recent gardening swell.

The Axiom study reveals new gardeners to be a confident group. Almost 71% reported that they felt successful or very successful in their endeavors. At the same time, 83% were satisfied or highly satisfied with the quality of their blooms, veggies and fruit. That success and satisfaction likely leads to the response of the 70% of those polled who said that they would be expanding their garden in the coming year.

Axiom Marketing CEO Mike Reiber notes that the high satisfaction marks aren’t because new gardeners are savants. “There’s a little ego there. The younger ones are very ego-driven,” he says. And it makes sense that they’d expand their plots in the coming years: “They probably started small, which is why they will plant more.”

Still, part of new gardener success, Reiber concedes, may be because these new gardeners are thoughtful about the plants they pick. Respondents noted that the first two influential factors in a purchasing decision were that the plant came from a national brand (39%) and was the specific variety of plant they wanted (33%). Moreover, the preferred quality of those varieties was that they produced lots of blooms, fruits and vegetables.

Reiber says these responses point to the fact that these gardeners may be new, but they aren’t ignorant. “There’s a high degree of education among these new gardeners,” he says. “They’re looking at tags. I wouldn’t have expected these people to know national brands. That tells me they know exactly what plant they want.”

While that news is great for the broader garden industry, the New and Novice Gardener Study does show that IGCs have a lot of room for improvement in connecting with beginners. The study found that 72% purchased most of their garden plants at Home Depot, Lowe’s or Walmart, with the number jumping even higher, to 81%, for gardening supplies. Only 11% of respondents looked to IGCs for plants, and even fewer (8%) shopped at independents for supplies.

But the survey also shows there are places for IGCs to capitalize on new gardeners’ consumer habits and capture some of this engaged and confident market. For instance, when respondents were unable to get the variety they wanted at their preferred retailer, 36% said that they would go somewhere else. Another 28% said that they would turn to the internet.

Both responses suggest moments when IGCs can break into a new gardener’s awareness — placing a particular emphasis on an IGC’s web and social media presence. “The garden center needs to find one of their young people who likes to garden and have that person do some videos,” Reiber says. He also emphasizes that an IGC website should have an up-to-date catalogue of varieties available. But more importantly, “They’ve got to make their websites mobile-friendly.”

Read on for more data from the Axiom New and Novice Gardener Study. Download the full report at axiomcom.com/2024-new-novice-gardener-study.

Patrick Alan Coleman is editor of Garden Center magazine. Contact him at pcoleman@gie.net.