As garden centers around the United Kingdom remained closed to stop the spread of the coronavirus, thousands of perfectly grown plants and flowers are being pulled out of pots and thrown away in compost heaps.
One firm said that they have thrown away some £2.5 million worth of plants.
Adrian Marskell, who has grown flowers for his entire adult life, said that he had to throw away 100,000 potted plants because they had nowhere to be sold. Marskell has said that he had never had to do anything like that before.
The Brandsford Webbs Plant Company run by Marskell told the Daily Mail that usually, his firm has a monthly revenue of a million pounds every month from March through May. However, Marskell said that this year his firm only earned £250,000 in three months – a decrease by one-twelfth.
For Marskell and other plant wholesalers, big garden centers around the country were the biggest source of revenue. Since the beginning of the outbreak, all 350 of the centers have been forced to close in accordance with the British government’s lockdown measures.
He pointed out the unfair competition that he faced with supermarkets or other large retail stores. Those bigger stores have been allowed to continue selling plants in their facilities. Marskell said that there was nothing else that he could do but hope that Prime Minister Boris Johnson allowed garden centers to reopen.
Marskell also added that regardless of whether garden centers reopen or not, his and all other plant wholesalers would be put out of business without government support. Daily Mail cited the Horticultural Trades Association to report that there are thousands of businesses that operate by selling plants.
The same report also showed how big the horticultural industry was economically. An estimate 30,000 people are employed in these businesses which generates £1.5 billion in revenue. In March, the association reported that £200 million worth of plants will have to be destroyed because of the lockdown.
The damage to the business is especially potent as most of them are family-operated. Financial loss is much more likely to affect the entire family. It is exacerbated by the fact that these months are usually the busiest months with all the festivities around the country.
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Replaced!