Will James Wong get gardeners excited?

Have you noticed how everything has to be exciting?

This struck me anew as I read the Horticultural Trade Association's interview with James Wong. He'll be speaking at the HTA National Plant Show today about engaging the younger generation. "My talk will cover my own - very personal - views on strategies that I believe garden retail (and in fact the whole industry) must adopt if it is to speak to younger audiences in an exciting, fun & relevant way. Whether it's to get 'em to pick a course at college or to secure a purchase at a garden centre."

(Oh, yes: "fun". I forgot that everything has to be fun as well.)

Now, two points. First, why is there a general assumption that no one will be able to raise a jot of enthusiasm about anything unless it's presented as - yes - exciting?  James is merely on trend with marketing speak, but I'm beginning to find it patronising. I don't need to be excited to find something interesting, and while I might not be the demographic that James is talking about, I know I never did. Children, in particular, are targets of this approach. Cue this month's RHS page for families.

"June has the longest day in the year and so is an exciting time of year to get out in the garden and enjoy early summer flowers.  Sow clarkia flowers for summer colour and radishes too for a vegetable with bite."

The rest of us do not escape. Get Your Grown-Ups Growing is promoted by the RHS :

"As part of the RHS Campaign for School Gardening this exciting new project encourages schools to get local grown-ups involved in their garden providing valuable resources and much needed help."

Pause for thought. Enjoying flowers - exciting? Sowing clarkia and radishes - exciting? Getting grown-ups in to do your digging - exciting? Hmm.

And this is my second point. How would you describe gardening? Absorbing, yes. Engaging, yes. Addictive - certainly for some. Satisfying, gratifying, comforting, soothing, puzzling, frustrating, intellectually challenging. All sorts of adjectives spring to mind. But not exciting - at least, not until you've become so absorbed, engaged, etc., etc., that the arrival of a new blight-resistant potato makes you buzz with anticipation.  Excitement does not come first.

Of course, there are prospects within gardening which most non-gardeners might recognise as potentially raising the pulse-rate: designing a show garden for Chelsea, for example; launching your own gardening business. But ordinary, everyday, suburban soil-delving comprising the main activity of all those youthful wallets that James Wong wants to wedge open at garden centres? I don't think so.

And there's the rub for the garden industry. Gardening isn't exciting. Gardening is the epitome of delayed gratification. We wait; we nurture. People who need excitement in the quantities that gardening marketing departments would like to serve up go sky-diving, bungie-jumping, or throw all their savings into a once-in-lifetime venture. Those of us who garden find it has exciting moments, but we do not do it for excitement.

I'm sorry I'm going to miss James's talk. He believes that "garden centres will begin to need to look and feel more like plant 'food halls' than factory outlets in the very near future". At least that might moderate the vast expanses of lifestyle products that I first mentioned in A Concession to Gardening and which have become the mainstay in many garden centres.

But he envisages what sounds to be an exhausting pitch of excitement, and a dizzying round of innovation.

"If our industry is going to survive it will need to take a leaf out of the books of ruthlessly innovative supermarkets, who are constantly striving to surprise and excite an increasingly discerning customer, instead of just churning out more of the same...

"Rewarding these horti-customers with a spread of exciting, novel varieties, quirky in-store displays and useful point of sale 'how to' advice - just like food and clothes retailers do as standard - is a guaranteed way to keep plant geeks (novices and veterans alike) wanting more."

What do you think? The horticultural industry is a tiny proportion of GDP. That's because gardening is not an inherently consumerist activity, unlike the food and clothes industry, where food gets eaten or perishes and clothes fall apart or out of fashion.

Picture yourself confronted by the panoply of novel varieties described above. Plant geeks grabbing more or, as the "increasingly discerning" customer whom James envisages, choosing the odd plant to try in that awkward corner? 

Those who might be drawn in are those who aren't discerning, those who are just starting off with the garden when, for a short time, you're like a kid in a sweetie shop - should I buy that? That looks good. Let's try that. But you buy your plants, you put them in, some die, some get replaced, and, unless you become absorbed, engaged etc., that's pretty much it.

If you do become absorbed, engaged etc., I can't help feeling that you won't be jumping up and down in the garden centre with excitement at a dozen novel varieties. You'll think about your garden, seek out a particular cultivar, choose with care.

And when that's done, you won't be in the shop, you'll be in the garden - growing, not consuming - and doing what you like best.



Comments

[Emma Cooper]

It's a good job that plants come ready-made with built-in obsolescence. This would suggest a move towards more annuals and bedding plants, and away from long-term planting. Mind you, as houses are not being built with gardens the size of postage stamps (if you're lucky), that's all anyone has room for anyway.

[Helen]

Good point, Emma. Do we sniff a new fashion for Victorian carpet bedding?

[Anna B]

Hi Helen, how are you doing?! I found your post really interesting. Funny how when the government wants more people to work in certain industries that they start the propaganda. They did this recently with engineering and targeted women. They'll do anything to try and help with the shortfall. Unfortunately as they promote one industry others then suffer, they've done it for years and I guess they've now decided to promote horticulture as there's less people signing up to work in it- they've all signed up for engineering ;) As a kid I loved gardening and garden centres too. It was curiosity about plants and being lost in my own little world that did it, I'm still the same today. I've not met many kids who don't enjoy playing in the garden or who don't enjoy seeing a crop being pulled from the ground. I think they do find it exciting already, it's just a shame that the industry is suffering and they have to use rather false ways of promoting it.

[Helen]

Hi, Anna. Lovely to hear from you. I hadn't thought of the government as being behind this. I think the answer is proper careers advice, and ensuring that horticulture isn't regarded as the last resort of the sixth-form drop-out. Perhaps that image is also a result of pushing careers like engineering. I agree, there are lots of bits of gardening which are exciting, especially harvesting, but trying to give most people the impression that you should want to do it for the excitement seems to me to be a bit of a stretch.

[Anne Wareham]

I was just thinking of you - I just put up 'Hampton Court Health Warnings' as the old gold piece on thinkingardens this minute. This shows the same sharp thinking.

It's infantalising, isn't it? And it isn't just gardening, it's everywhere. I saw 5 mins of Countryfile the other day after years of not watching it. And found they were talking to me as if I was a brain dead three year old needing waking up.

And I found a notice in the loos at Hidcote this week, saying 'Out of Order. My lock is broken but we're hoping to have it mended soon'.

What the f..k? What does it mean that we're behaving this way?

[Helen]

It is infantilising, Anne, and it is everywhere. A couple of years ago I complained to Barclays about the new signs in their playgrounds - oh, sorry, banks. These included a "Nearly there!" notice at the front of the queueing area, which just made me boil at the attitude that apparently sees all its customers as toddlers. Apparently they were trying to be "friendly". The more you treat people like children, the more they'll behave like them and, I suggest, the less responsibility they take, and the less likely they are to challenge what goes on around them.

[John Walker]

Oh Helen, how I agree with you on what seems to be the latest fun-filled marketing lets-milk-gardeners-for-a-bit-more-cash trend - the Wongification of gardening. What fun it's not.

But then the gardening industry is never going to sing the fun-filled praises of anyone describing gardening as it actually is (as you do), rather than what the latest Horticultural Trades Association press release would like us to believe it is (fun-filled and on-profit 24/7, I guess).

We're in a dangerous zone now, where to question or challenge the fun-filled, exciting and cucumelon-fuelled world of Wong (and his ilk) is so frowned upon that to do so risks becoming a socially dysfunctional enemy of growth.

Long live gardening in the real world. Now that would be fun...

[Helen]

Thank you, John. The emphasis on growth seems to be moving out of the garden. I'm sure in the long-term it would be more productive for the industry to make gardening sound less like other pursuits and more as it really is. No one wants to be excited all the time. Though, that possibly nowadays does make one socially disfunctional.

[Meg]

What a refreshing read this is. I often feel like a 'miserable old sod', even though I am neither old or miserable, for not buying into the type of nonsense that James Wong and other celebrities peddle. This endless emphasis on excitement and fun, not only in gardening but other spheres, underestimates our intelligence and gets in the way of real slow-burn enjoyment, interest, passion...

Even if I were after excitement, I doubt I would be in the market for Mr Wong's take on excitement if he truly believes that our supermarkets are "innovative [supermarkets], who are constantly striving to surprise and excite an increasingly discerning customer,..."

[Mike Roberts]

Whilst I doubt that 'exciting' is the right adjective to describe gardening i do applaud James Wong and others for trying to engage with young people. As a lecturer in horticulture I am all too aware of the difficulty in trying to attract young people into our industry. It strikes me that we fail to make a distinction between gardening and horticulture - the former is viewed as a 'hobby' or 'pastime' whose public face is either the cuddly Alan Titmarsh, or the frankly bizarre Christine Walkden, neither of which is likely to appeal to the average 16 year old. Horticulture is a career with a multitude of opportunities. It involves science, technology, innovation and can indeed be exciting. If we want to encourage the younger generation into the industry it is these qualities that we should be promoting and a good place to start would be school careers officers who like many confuse gardening and horticulture.