WACO, Texas — The pandemic hit many industries hard, but one is actually booming, the garden industry.
The enthusiasm for gardening has grown after this past year. Even with so many negative impacts from the Coronavirus and even the winter storm, many have found love in planting, which has helped gardening businesses and nurseries in the process.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, many dug out their shovels and got their hands dirty for the first time.
"It helped bring a lot more customers in, I think,” Gregg Houck, co-owner of Westview Nursery and Landscape, said.
Houck said that Westview Nursery saw an increase in both new and seasoned gardeners coming into the nursery over the course of the pandemic.
“People were at home, they were going crazy and they didn’t know what to do and they decided to go out and do some work in the yard,” Houck said.
According to a survey from Axiom Marketing, for those in the 19 to 28 age group, nearly 50% of them spent more time gardening than they have, well, ever.
“I think that there are a lot of people who are staying home and enjoying their houses and going back a little and not being so busy and enjoying what they are doing at home,” Darin Root, a customer, said.
But Covid-19 wasn’t the only reason more people have been pulling out their gardening gloves.
“And of course this year with the weather, it brought a lot more people in," Houck said.
After the winter storm in February, many people’s plants and gardens were destroyed, which had a lot more people heading to their local nurseries to refurbish what was lost.
“A lot of people are trying to recuperate and trying to refresh their beds from all of the plants that have died and a lot of people are just trying refresh their houses,” Root said.
But despite the damage that the winter storm and Covid-19 have caused, Houck believes that this gardening trend will take root and stick.
“I think that we will for the next couple of years before it levels out, going back to where it was," Houck said. "Well at least I hope it does, it's always good to have a good year and have people coming in to buy material.”
