While many of us may hanker after a bigger garden, for serious devotees there’s a far more fundamental appeal to a large plot of land, and that is for growing their own food.
‘The lockdown has unleashed a wave of passion across the country for all things gardening and particularly for growing fruit and vegetables,’ says Chris Harrop, who chaired the judging panel at the Royal Horticultural Society.
A third of a million people visited the RHS Grow Your Own website in May — up 316 per cent a year ago, while visits to pages giving tips on growing vegetables in containers soared 219 per cent.
And the favourite vegetable? In terms of RHS website visits so far this summer, it’s been potatoes, followed by tomatoes and strawberries.
However, for those who are even more ambitious, the ultimate house move in the post-coronavirus era is likely to be a greenshifter — that’s estate agent jargon for those who move from being a city slicker to owning a smallholding, consisting of several acres suitable for vegetables and some livestock, too, such as rare breed pigs, chickens and goats.
The high-fliers’s property status symbol has switched in recent years from being a swish townhouse in London to a smallholding in the countryside
This switch from the fast lane to living the good life and trying to be self-sufficient has become something of a fashion statement in the past two decades, as hedge fund managers become hedge trimmers in the countryside.
But the change might be more deep-rooted. High-end estate agency Savills surveyed nearly 700 buyers and sellers in April and found 40 per cent were more enthusiastic than before about living in the country or in a village.
So fire up the lawnmower and dig out the pitchfork — the age of the garden has arrived.