Trending garden projects

Katie Morley, MD at Ronjack Products, Oakio composite wood decking distributor, says Google is telling us that the time to install decking is now.

During the first national lockdown between March and July 2020, the UK spent a whopping £55 billion (an average of just over £4,000 per household) on their homes, according to Money.co.uk.

And to pay for the improvements almost a quarter of people diverted money originally intended for holidays.

As the pandemic bit harder and rules around tier three were announced, the report was updated at the end of 2020 with winter garden projects, which showed a massive increase in a wide number of related search terms. It showed a willingness to use the garden during the winter with increases in searches for chimineas up 400% and outdoor heating up by 300%. Fire pits went up from 74K to 301K.

We know that traditionally, decking sales are very seasonal. In a normal year, sales don’t ramp up until Easter when the DIY market gets busy and homeowners look out on their gardens and decide that they want to make the most of their muddy patch.

But this year, we are already seeing a huge increase in interest for decking even in the dark winter months. And we believe the reason is that people want to use their gardens as soon as they are allowed to meet family and friends again.

With the vaccination programme rolling out, it’s likely that by Easter will see an ease in restrictions, but it’s highly unlikely that we’ll be sharing the inside of our homes in the same way for many months.

Often having a stable platform is the first part of the renovation, with composite decking being one of the top options.

Oakio is the next generation composite decking. It’s designed for use 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. It doesn’t matter if it’s brilliant sunshine, pouring with raining – very little maintenance is needed other than a quick sweep over. It not only looks fantastic and comes in six stunning colours, but it’s simply gorgeous for feet.

We call it barefoot friendly with no chance of splinters, and you can pop the children out on the rainiest of days without fear of them slipping over, which means it’s great for grannies and grandads too. You don’t have to take our word for it, we have all the testing data to show how well it performs.

For installation companies fitting garden rooms, extensions and conservatories, this is a great way to add extra work that’s installed outside. It means they can make more profit from work that gardeners and landscapers might have picked up otherwise.

People are motivated to spend more time with friends and family, and we think that Google trends are offering an insight into futures sales. Pre-Easter sales are likely to be at record levels, and we have growing distributor network to ensure quick and easy UK coverage.