If you’re looking to fill your garden with colour by planting hardy perennials like delphiniums or lupins, or maybe putting in some roses… or you want to add some delicious fruit trees to your garden… or you’d like to fill the inside of your home with houseplants to benefit from their health-giving properties… well, it’s not quite as quick and easy as it used to be.
The demand for plants is much higher than usual - about two to three times higher – and this is mostly due to the three million or so people who have decided to take up gardening during this lockdown! And due to Brexit and the pandemic throwing a few spanners in the works, supply has fallen considerably – by about 50%, according to the Horticultural Trades Association.
European plants being imported into this country (almost all of the house plants sold in the UK are grown in Holland or Belgium) are having to undergo more stringent health inspections, there is a lot of congestion at UK ports, and there is a lack of staff to deal with all this due to staffing issues related to Brexit and social distancing measures, so everything is taking longer than usual – and consequently is costing more.
Unfortunately, this naturally has affected a lot of our suppliers who have now had to add in delivery charges to compensate for their extra costs, and reluctantly we ourselves are now being forced to reflect these additional charges in any new quotes we send out.
A piece of advice we would offer is to plan ahead - think about what you might need later in the year and order it now if you can!
by Leslie Chetland
4th May 2021
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