gardening feels the chill of economic downturn

The National Trust for Scotland has recently announced job losses and changes to the way it will operate some of its properties. This is hardly surprising, as charities, the same as everyone else, are finding it difficult in the present economic climate.

Britain's flower shows will doubtless be affected - the number of major show gardens at this year's RHS Chelsea will be down on last year and there is little doubt that with increasing economic pressures there will be less sponsorship around in the foreseeable future.

Quite how the economic climate will affect garden centres and nurseries is yet to be calculated. A Gardeners' World magazine survey, recently carried out with their readers panel, found that more people are intending to grow vegetables but they were not planning to cut back on flowers as a result.

That can only be good news for our nurseries and flower growers. Certainly gardeners will be looking for value plants as never before, they may buy less rather than not at all. However, the vegetable explosion has been growing apace for some years now and really started well before the economic downturn - as evidenced by the long waiting lists for several years for allotments.

Bringing colour into our lives is important and for many our gardens are not just pleasant places to sit but have real thereaputic properties and are certainly good for your health.

On a more positive note, one of the weekend gardening supplements I saw yesterday, urged gardeners to be bold and plant a hydrangea. Now if you are looking for a value plant there is one in a nutshell. Considered rather old fashioned in recent years, these lovely shrubs can give you years of pleasure, need very little looking after, and make terrific cut flowers.

I think we will see a re-emergence of the popularity of plants such as hydrangers - their second coming will cheer us all. They come in a variety of splendid colours and as the article pointed out, by planting one you will be at the cutting edge of fashion - in fact quite retro!!