Gardening’s lockdown challenge

WHEN the Coronavirus lockdown came into effect in March, the horticultural industry was one of the sectors hardest hit by the global pandemic.

Occurring during a peak time, as people returned to gardening after winter, it was exacerbated by the fact that everyone decided to take up gardening to fill their lockdown hours and the garden centres were forced to close.

This put pressure on major suppliers and online retailers to up their game and meet the unprecedented demand. They implemented round-the-clock packing and dispatching schedules, but even so it was almost impossible to keep up with demand, and some companies were forced to briefly close their websites to catch up with orders.