over three quarters (77%) of garden owners use their gardens for eating and entertaining with half (50%) owning a barbecue and the same proportion also having outside lighting. Use of the garden for leisure is not however restricted to keen gardeners and the greatest potential lies with the 'marginal' gardener which account for 45% of intended purchases.

As well as investigating use of the garden for household meals, entertaining, barbecuing and outdoor parties - with the latter enjoyed by over half (56%) - the new research found that while four in five (80%) of gardens contain at least one piece

of furniture, penetration of individual items such as dining tables or chairs was lower. Least active gardeners were in fact most likely to have chairs in their gardens (54%)!

"Enjoying the garden is not necessarily the same as enjoyment of gardening" said HTA Director of Marketing Andrew Maxted. "This research highlights again the importance of the 'marginal' gardener to the sector, people who do some gardening and are frequent visitors to garden centres driven by a desire to improve their outdoor space for themselves, family and friends".

"We estimate that there some 200,000 households with garden chairs but no garden table and over two million households which don't currently own a barbecue but are considering buying one. This represents an enormous opportunity for the industry to increase penetration of garden leisure furniture and equipment in our gardens through product innovation and imaginative promotions targeted at different consumer groups."

The HTA's GIM Consumer Insight newsletters are a new addition to the association's Garden Industry Monitor (GIM) programme and are freely available to HTA supplier and retailer members through the HTA website, http://cms.the-hta.org.uk/innova2.9/www.the-hta.org.uk.