Gardening: market declining also in Q1 2023

Sales of green care machinery and equipment recorded a loss of 19.6%, confirming last year's negative trend. Weather anomalies and inflationary dynamics discourage purchases, although a partial recovery is expected during the course of the year. The importance of technological innovation, especially for urban maintenance. The appointment with the DemoGreen demonstration event (28 and 29 September) in San Donato Milanese

After closing 2022 with a 15% drop, the market for gardening and landscaping machinery and equipment also recorded a negative trend in the first quarter of the new year. The sales figures - released by the manufacturers' association Comagarden and the Morgan survey group - show a 19.6% drop in units sold in the January-March period, with marked decreases for almost all types of equipment. Lawn mowers dropped by 26.1%, motor hoes by 22.7%, chainsaws by 19.5%, petrol brushcutters by 26.9%, snowploughs by 43.6%, and negative results were also recorded for other types of machinery, both professional and hobby. The exceptions were ride-on mowers, which grew by 11.6%, professional ride-on mowers (+17.6%) and robot lawn mowers (+6.7%), while the market for hedge trimmers was stationary (-0.4%). The drop in sales, which characterises the 15 months from January 2022 to March 2023, slows down a sector that has performed well in recent years, driven by the growing attention to green care by both city administrations and private individuals and hobbyists. The current economic situation - Comagarden explains - is penalising purchases because the anomalous weather trend, which until March saw a deficit in rainfall and therefore less vegetative activity in plants, has been compounded by economic uncertainty and rising machinery prices due to increased production costs. Market share is expected to recover in the coming months - Comagarden says - so as to reduce, net of the weather trend, the deficit at the end of 2023 to around 5%, with almost 1.3 million units sold overall (including every product category, from lawn mowers to blowers, shredders and lawn shears). An increasingly important role in relaunching the sector – notes the manufacturers' association - is played by promotional and demonstration initiatives, especially those aimed at the professional public and municipalities that need to invest in renewing their machinery fleets. Of particular interest, in this sense, is the DemoGreen event, the two-day exhibition and field trials organised by DemoGreen srl, which will take place on 28 and 29 September in San Donato (MI) in the beautiful setting of the Parco dei Conigli. New technologies allow an increasingly intelligent and sustainable management of green areas - explain the organisers - and this should, beyond the current economic situation, give new vitality to the market.