CUTTINGS: Garden habits

According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, 85 per cent of British households have a garden - a total of 19 million gardens. As a pastime, the popularity of gardening is increasing, with men keener than women (surely not?). In 1993, we spent £2, 119m on garden products.

Garden products are chiefly sold in one of Britain's 2,000 garden centres, most of which are independent operations, the unit says. The biggest sector of the market centres on garden furniture, barbecues and conservatories, whichare still classed as garden buildings. Swedish-owned Flymo has the lion's share of the lawnmower market. American Black & Decker leads in power tools, and Finnish-owned Wilkinson Sword in hand tools. Hozelock (British) has the irrigation department sown up, while Suttons (Swedish again) dominates the seed trade.

For the price of a decent lawnmower you can get detailed reports on garden spending habits from the Economist Intelligence Unit, 15 Regent Street, London SW1Y 4LR.