Gardening Money Facts

One of my favorite magazines is Kiplinger's Personal Finance.  And one of my favorite parts of the magazine is called "The Kiplinger Monitor".  It's half a page of facts about one selected topic.  In June, they selected "gardening", and here are a few of the facts that I found quite interesting (along with some of my comments):

• 82 million households gardened in 2004, up 22% since 1999 (I was added during this period -- started growing roses.)
• 1 in 4 gardening households have incomes of $75,000 or more (Wealthy people need hobbies too!)
• The average amount consumers spend on lawns and gardens annually is $449 (I'm probably in this range, maybe lower since my rose bushes are now mature.)
• The average amount households spend annually on professional tree care is $542 (Are you kidding?  There must be 10% of the people spending a bundle to get this average since I don't know anyone who has paid for this.)
• Average spent by households who hire professional landscape designers is $4,921 (These people are either too wealthy to care about this cost or they're deeply in debt.)
• Total sales for Scotts Miracle-Gro -- the largest consumer lawn-and-garden company -- were $2 billion, up 16% from 2002 (I LOVE Miracle-Gro.)
• Total share of lawn-and-garden retail sales at Home Depot, Lowe's, Wal-mart, and Kmart is 70% (Yikes! This is really bad news for independent stores and smaller chains.  I bet it was 50% only a few years ago. FYI, I buy about 90% of my supplies from these four.)
• Landscaping can increase townhouse and condominium values by 5% to 15% (Decent return for the investment.)

Comments

[Steve Mertz]

The best $150 I ever spent was to hire a landscape designer to draw up some plans. I was then free to hire anyone for the work. Her design was great and in the long run saved me money and time by making the right selections the first time!!