By fostering industry wide alignment, the Horticultural Trades Association (HTA) new seasonal schedule, ‘Your Garden Year’ is designed to maintain customer engagement, drive repeat visits, cultivate customer loyalty, and boost sales growth.
The monthly guide provides a shared schedule of gardening activities and themes, from spring planting to autumn lawn care. It serves as a reminder and encouragement for gardeners. By means of the new initiative, the HTA hopes to encourage coordinated alignment of retailers, growers, suppliers, and the media to promote consistent, synergetic messaging that inspires and encourages customers to engage with their gardens throughout the year.
The full campaign is scheduled to commence in Spring 2026 and will include supporting materials, such as pre-designed social media content, ‘Plant of the Moment’ assets, and media prompts, which will subsequently be released.
Speaking about the new initiative at yesterday’s HTA conference, Neil Grant, Chair of the HTA Retail Committee and Managing Director of Ferndale Garden Centre, urged retailers, suppliers and the gardening media to work together to reignite the nation’s love of gardening. Grant explained how the Covid lockdowns prompted individuals to venture into their gardens, resulting in an overnight surge of approximately two million new gardeners for the industry.
“Many of these new gardeners weren’t keen gardeners, and as soon as warm-weather holidays were possible, they flew away. This spring, after a great start, the weather slipped, then we hit drought, and sales flattened. Keener gardeners became our staple again. The reality is that fine-weather consumers are ‘shoppers’ rather than ‘customers’ – they shop when and where it’s convenient,” said Grant.
In an effort to capture a larger share of the market, Grant explained, “What garden shoppers lack is stimulus, ideas and information at the right time to nudge them along. If, together as retailers, suppliers, and the gardening press, we had a way of reminding and encouraging them throughout the year about what’s on offer, we could secure their repeat custom – without a massive marketing budget. Today, we announce a shopper-focused campaign for the whole industry for 2026. We call it Your Garden Year – Turning Inspiration into Customers. This is not a revolution, but a restoration of seasonal garden activities that are starting to be lost with passing generations and the advancement of modern lifestyle changes and tech. Please don’t leave today thinking this is for someone else – it’s for all of us.”
By keeping gardening in the public consciousness all year round, the HTA hopes to restore the rhythm of the gardening calendar and stimulate the market for all.
