Gas and electricity supplier, First Utility, more than 2,000 Britons what they put their energy into, and gardening came out top.
Gardening was a surprise winner, topping the list of your favourite outdoor pursuits with 37.5% of the vote. And First Utility said it was an unexpected result, given the rapid rate at which green space is shrinking.
Here are three things First Utility learned about Britain’s passion for pruning:
The older we get, the more we garden
Our survey suggests that our age and our gardening habits go hand in hand. Only 16.4% of 16-24 year olds cited gardening as their outdoor activity of choice. This age group favour shopping, with twice as many people preferring to hit the high street than the back yard.
In contrast, 47.6% of people in the 55+ age group list gardening as their favourite outdoor pastime. But these figures could say more about our living arrangements than our interests, considering that 63% of 16-24 year olds still live with parents.
Men and women enjoy gardening (almost) equally
According to our survey, there’s very little gender divide when it comes to gardening. 38.2% of men and 37% of women named gardening as their passion.
Belfast is a city of gardeners
Though Belfast is famed for its Botanical gardens, its back gardens deserve a slice of the glory too. Of the Belfast residents surveyed, a colossal 50% of them named gardening as their number one outdoor hobby. Sheffield followed suit with 49%.
So who is the least green-fingered? Surprisingly, it’s not the sprawling cities that fared lowest on the scale (London and Birmingham landed somewhere in the middle).
Instead it’s our ports and coastal towns that are the least enthusiastic about gardening, with Brighton, Bristol and Liverpool at the bottom of the list.
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