As Britain’s best garden designers and horticulturists celebrate their successes at this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show, a survey from Homebase, one of the UK’s biggest garden retailers, reveals that the nation’s gardening know-how is in danger of being lost to future generations.
The survey, which questioned people about their gardening knowledge to discover who is teaching the younger generation basic gardening skills, suggests that grandparents could be the secret-weapon in helping Britain maintain its reputation as a nation of gardeners.
The results show that nearly 40 per cent of 16-24 year olds learnt about gardening from their grandparents, compared to just under three per cent who say they learnt it at school.
It follows research by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) that showed that only one per cent of today’s parents were taught how to garden compared to 55 per cent of grandparents.
Graham Heald, Retail and Distribution Director at Homebase, which carried out the research, said: “For many people their first experience of gardening comes from spending time in the garden with their grandparents. Over half (55 per cent) of respondents said they had fond memories of this, from planting flowers and seeds, to growing vegetables and mowing the lawn.
“We know first-hand from our students in the Homebase Garden Academy – an initiative we set up to help unearth Britain’s next generation of gardening talent – just how important grandparents can be in passing on valuable gardening knowledge. Many of our students say it was their grandparents who gave them their love of gardening and inspired them to pursue it as a career.”
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