Restart of the garden segment

In the period March/April following the health emergency due to Covid-19, the Italian market of gardening and home improvement had to deal with the general crisis linked to the pandemic.
The values and volumes of sales obviously showed a significant contraction, starting from February 2020, up to the period of March/April due to the lockdown imposed by the govern­ment.
Despite this situation of great difficulty due to the health emergency, the garden and outdoor sector recovered very well at the end of the lockdown, placing itself as a leading sector within the home improvement context.
The values of production and the volumes of sales for outdoor and garden have in fact returned to growth in this last period, making the sector one of those that has responded best to the moment of crisis due to restrictions linked to Covid-19.
The world of garden, floriculture and outdoor has had a very positive trend in the last months from May to August; this is what emerges from an analysis conducted by the Made4DIY network, the Italian association of DIY and gardening manu­facturers.
The study was conducted on companies inside the Made4DIY network, in particular on the 40 member companies.
Garden centre/floriculture: the trend of this last period (May to August) is very positive compared to the same period of the previous year (the most positive months were May and June). The growth in turnover is around 15 per cent compared to the same period of the previous year. This positive trend also raised expectations for the end of the year; in fact, the first half ended positively, and this promises well for manufacturers that could have a chance to recover the "lost time" in the previous months.
Fertilizers and garden care: in the same way, the recovery in turnover marked in the sector of fertilizers and garden care is very important. The months of May, June and July are those that have marked a consistently improved trend compared to 2019. Otherwise, last year the results were negatively influenced by bad weather conditions, the month of May in particular had been mostly rainy. In this sector, the first half of the year produces positive esti­mates, and the achievable goal is to close this in 2020 at around +10 per cent.
Irrigation: also for the irrigation sector, the trend is confirmed equally positive in July and August. The first half of 2020 ended positively. For the main manufacturers of this sector, the month of May made it possible to recover the decline recorded in the…