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The gardening industry has grown savvier. It's fast producing lawn and garden tools that boomers can use in their greying years -- but that don't look so, well, elderly. Cool tools that are efficient, don't harm the environment, and play to the self-mythology of an activist, can-do, forever-youthful generation.
We are a finicky lot, but a powerful market force, 78 million strong. A yearly survey by the non-profit National Gardening Association in the U.S. found that people 45 and older are the backbone of the industry -- accounting for about 64 per cent of gardening retail sales.
Many of us, though, don't have much time for working in the yard or tending that backyard patch of tomatoes. And if we're retired, we're probably downsizing our gardens, or at least not starting new ones.
In fact, sales to gardening do-it-yourselfers are down -- $34 billion in 2006, a decline from the previous year and below even 2001's figure of $37.7 billion, according to the NGA. With the economic downturn, gardening isn't a spending necessity. The industry is hoping the movement toward greening the planet will at least help at the cash register.
Today's tools are colourful -- easier for aging eyes to see -- and ergonomic -- delivering results for less muscle. They're cushion-gripped, streamlined, with a fun factor.
The idea is to make it easier for the backyard gardener to sit, plant, water, weed and reap the fruits of relatively modest labour.
Will Raap, who in 1983 founded Gardener's Supply, the big Vermont catalogue company, based his business on "enabling" tools for people with physical limitations, mainly the disabled and elderly. But he's seen a resurgence in products like his original Easy Kneeler, which has handles that help people get up and down to garden.
"It's a pretty good example of a product that got a little slow, then when the boomers got a little tired they were interested," said Raap, at 58 a boomer himself. His target customers are people who, like him, "get tired a little easier" but still want the exercise and satisfaction of gardening.
Bruce Butterfield, NGA's market research director, said boomer-friendly tools could boost the industry because gardening "becomes more fun if you're not walking away with aches and pains."
Look for these back-saving devices at Home Depot and other gardening outlets.
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