A Growing Demand For Horticulture At Home

Published by AMI-admin on 25th Feb 2021

Spring is in the air, and once again people are turning to their gardens in search of an activity that will bring both physical and mental health benefits as we head towards what we hope to be the end of the pandemic. The horticulture scene has experienced a significant boom since we entered into the first lockdown in early 2020. Pinterest alone reported a 600% increase in searches for ‘homemade garden boxes’ and ‘DIY small garden ideas vegetables’ as furloughed workers and people working from home looked for new activities to occupy their time.

Examples of the gardening boom include Canada-based Stokes Seeds, which ships to the United States and Canada, who received 1,000 online orders during the weekend of March 21, four times more than normal, and In Russia, demand for seeds rose by 20%-30% year-on-year in March, according to online retailer Ozon.

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At-home gardening has grown leaps and bounds last year and projections this year, according to Garden Media’s trend report, show that of the 16 million people who took up gardening in the US last year, 80% plan to continue this year. This new-found love for planting, growing and producing your very own crop is certainly not going anywhere in the immediate future, and with that in mind, there is a huge opportunity for printable products designed for outdoor environments, such as plant tags and wraps.

Plastic is an excellent material for durability and items printed on plastic can be placed almost anywhere because they work well in environments with high humidity, won’t deteriorate when wet and won’t tear apart when handled under harsh conditions. Plastic labels are available in a wide range of thicknesses, making them versatile products for a number of applications where durability is a must.

Along with end-users now using more plants tags and labels, more than ever before garden centres require informative labels and point of sale signs to attract customers to their large range of products. The labelling needs to be just right to market the plants themselves and make them stand out from the competition; it needs to be informative, colourful, eye-catching to help the end-users/customers choose the right product and provide enough aftercare information once purchased. But most of all, these labels need to last, to withstand the variable outdoor conditions and repeated watering while being on show either at the growers, the garden centre or in-store.

Many garden centres are taking this a step further, and prefer the convenience of printing their own labels, reducing the amount of production waste and the added benefit of having the flexibility of personalising each tag and label, even down to their store logo, with a minimal financial investment. There are now specialist firms supplying software in a ready-to-use package, combining a bank of high-quality photographic images with an easy-to-setup, pre-designed templates. Alongside it, there is a relatively small desktop laser printer and pre-designed perforated synthetic tags, wrap-around collar labels or even plant stabbers which, once printed, can be separated, and used immediately. An attractive proposition especially for smaller garden centres!

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Kernow Synthetics for Dry toner – a durable solution for on-demand digital horticultural applications

With optimised print performance and excellent outdoor durability, ready right from the printer output tray without wasting time and resources on any extra lamination processes, KernowPrint® Dry Toner is the perfect digital synthetic solution. KernowPrint® Dry Toner offers growers and garden centres maximum flexibility from one single print to thousands, saving both time and money with outstanding print quality combined with the strongest construction to withstand strenuous conditions.