Gardening & Planting
For people with no time on their hands, getting dirt under their fingernails is a way of reclaiming land they already own. Also, making pesto.
By Andrew Burmon
8% Spend $2K+ Annually on the Garden
71% Don't Consider Themselves Gardeners
86% Gardeners Spending Less than $500 Annually
56% Think Formal Gardens Signal Discernment
Upper Middle ’s “Gardening Survey,” which collected dirt on Upper Middle azalea artisans, found that interest in gardening was correlated with wealth and income 1 1 , but time spent gardening was not .
America’s major metros are full of frustrated gardeners tending potted tomatoes.
Gardening was a common activity, but not a huge time commitment for most respondents, the majority of whom (68%) spend two hours or less per week gardening and third of whom (33%) spend less than half an hour.
A relatively small group of respondents (10%) spend between 3 and 6 hours weekly.
But time spent is not correlated particularly strongly with those who report themselves to be competent gardeners.
Gardening is, in short, a form of performed identity.
The importance of gardening to identity is complicated by the fact that many members of the upper-middle class grow up gardening and move to cities where doing so is no longer possible.
This is the only plausible way to explain why 71% of respondents reported that they do not consider themselves gardeners and 59% describe themselves as competent at gardening.
Not all gardeners garden.
There's a lot of potential energy there not be released.
Perhaps predictably, the wealthiest survey respondents ($500K+ HHI) were the most likely to describe gardening as a priority 2 2 (78%) but among the least likely to spend more than two hours gardening per week 3 3 (31%).
This suggests a proxy economy: High-income gardeners over-index dramatically on paid landscape services, specialty nursery purchases, and — notably — gardening books they describe as 'aspirational.' The garden is core to self-conception, but the time commitment lags the identity commitment.
Of those gardening 3-6 hours weekly, a striking 56% are also spending more than 6 hours outside on their property for other purposes, suggesting that serious gardeners aren't just tending plants — they're living outdoors.
These heavy users represent a distinct lifestyle cohort.
Not everyone is gardening by choice in miniature.
Among respondents earning $35K–$50K, 91% have container gardens (vs.
30% overall) — a near-total concentration that suggests the potted-tomato condition is less a lifestyle aesthetic and more a function of what's available to them 4 4 .
For this cohort, the container isn't a gateway to the estate garden; it may be the only garden there is.
Though only a handful of respondents (3%) reported having formal gardens – “English” for BritBox subscribers – these geometric installations were almost universally believed to signal both wealth and taste 5 5 .
Natural gardens were perceived to signal wealth, but not taste and productive gardens were perceived to signal taste, but not wealth.
