Smaller Gardens in Fashion Colours

This May is the longest time I have ever spent in and around Perth, this will quickly change as the rest of the year takes me around the world many times. It has given me the opportunity to ponder on the local scene and to review what is happening. Perth, Western Australia, is, we are, told the fastest growing economy in the western world at present. If the building boom and house prices are anything to go by it can be quite scary. At first this may make you think the garden center industry is booming, but the leisure dollar is being spread a lot further these days whilst the garden size is shrinking. The new home owner tends to be a decorator but not a gardener. Plus the house is taking up 25% more space whilst the building plot is also shrinking. Retailers that have not kept up with regeneration of their business have lost market share and are finding it difficult to keep up with the companies that have been steadily investing in their future. The real challenge for many retailers is to reintroduce passion into the team and to stand back and look at their business and understand why the consumer buys from them. A new report produced in Australia for the nursery industry gives the following areas as the main drivers of the industry. 1 Fashion colors being take from indoors to outdoors 2 Smaller gardens 3 Water conservation plants and plant arrangements 4 Low or no maintenance gardening Retailers I have spoken to who sell indoor foliage in stand production containers are saying sales are well down, whilst retailers who are providing added value offers with foliage plants in fashion containers are recording increases in sales. Fewer retailers are getting a bigger part of the pie and I do not see that trend changing ,in Perth anyway.