When you’re totally consumed with a pastime you think that everyone else enjoys it just as much. So, you can imagine my disappointment when I tell people that I love to garden and find their reaction is anything but positive. In fact, many of them try to dissuade me from wasting my time or tell me horror stories about their gardening endeavours – some which haunt me in my worst nightmares.

So, I’ve always wondered how popular gardening is. Am I a freak of nature or is this a bona fide pastime that I need to be reassured with?

There are two ways of assessing any theory so I set out to try and justify my hobby firstly by observation.
Yesterday, we drove (annoyingly slowly – to some drivers who have no respect for Sunday drivers) around some of the homes here in Busselton. And while some are just beach houses, and many more are rental properties, there was always the odd few that appeared to show some pride in their gardening achievements.

Seeing these homes and their beautifully landscaped gardens (the ones that have obviously completed most of it themselves), I began to feel a little more comfortable knowing that I wasn’t the only one who enjoyed gardening. Actually it seemed there were more than a few who also enjoyed gardening as a hobby.

Which led me on in my quest to understand the popularity of this pastime by taking it to the next level of research. Quantitative analysis. Numbers and stuff…

And who better to give a picture of this than Harris Interactive? Since 1995 they’ve been tracking people’s leisure time and what they choose to do with it and reporting some very interesting results.

Gardening is still one of the most popular hobbies.

Actually – according to their last study in 1994 – gardening was listed in equal 7th place alongside renting movies, walking and listening to music. In fact, more people like to garden than do the housework! You never would have guessed that one would you?

However, while I feel secure that gardening isn’t a nerd hobby the results over the course of the nine years are a little alarming. Gardening is slowly losing its place in the upper echelons of pastime activities.

I’m not too worried though, as people become greener and more concerned with the environment I think this trend will be reversed and we’ll start gardening more. And who wouldn’t want to be gardening more than socialising with friends (placed 16th) anyway?