US (VA): After dry spell, local garden centers spring back
After an industry-wide slump tied to the recession, the home mortgage crisis, a shift in consumer preferences and demographic changes, horticulture sales have been on the rebound.
“The economy is not booming by any stretch of the imagination, but it is steadily improving,” said Bill Gouldin, president of Strange’s Florists, Greenhouses & Garden Centers and president of the Virginia Nursery & Landscape Association.
“It’s improving a little bit better than the supply of nursery stock. Nurserymen have not been able to keep up with the demand. There are spotty shortages of certain kinds of trees and shrubs. That’s not unusual coming out of a recession.”
According to a United States Department of Agriculture report released in December, horticulture operations sold $13.8 billion worth of ornamental plants, trees and shrubs and specialty crops in 2014, up 18 percent over 2009. The numbers are based on a survey sent to more than 40,000 horticulture establishments nationwide.
Over that same five-year period, the number of horticulture operations in the U.S. increased 8 percent.
Read more at the Richmond Times-Dispatch