The Chelsea Flower Show is a stunning spectacle, but for too many young people the dream of owning a garden withers on the vine |
By Didrik Dege Dimmen
The RHS Chelsea Flower Show is in full swing, the biggest event in the UK gardening calendar, awash with celebrity and royal faces.
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But for many, especially the younger generations, it’s a frustrating reminder of what they’re missing out on, and their disconnection from the world of gardening has effects more wide-ranging than you might first think.
One can obviously appreciate the show for what it is, a high-spirited celebration of horticulture, design and the green-fingered, but as the coverage has ramped up I’ve found it hard to banish from my mind the findings of new research, conducted by my indoor smart gardening company Auk.
The survey, conducted with the London Student Network, found that a staggering 88% of young people do not feel confident they will ever own a home with a garden, and consequently, 75% believe that growing your own produce is now ‘a thing of the past’.
To be clear, it is not to say that young people aren’t gardening at all. Many discovered the joys of growing plants during the pandemic and some carried it on afterwards, primarily in balconies, window boxes and in rarer cases, gardens or allotments. But those solutions have limitations and can be inaccessible to many young people living in student or rented accommodation who don't have access.
In the survey we conducted, three-quarters of young people pointed to a lack of access to outdoor space like a garden or........