Gardening and buying flowers seem to be a quintessentially British thing to do, or is it?. We thought we would see if the data backs this up, so one Sunday afternoon we decided to do some digging and figure out how much Europeans spend on flowers each year.

It turns out it’s a LOT.

We found a wonderful report created for the Belgian Development Agency called “The European Market for Fair & Sustainable Flowers & Plants.” In that report, data is given by the Centre for the Promotion of Imports from Developing Countries that shows the annual sales figures in each European country for potted plants and cut flowers.

We thought it would be fun to add them all up and work out where in Europe the floral business is truly flowering. Here’s what we got!



(Click to enlarge)

Who would have thought that the Germans buy 62% more flowers than any other European country?

Just in case your geography isn’t too hot, here’s the list. And to save you counting, Germany tops the list followed by France and then the UK… so I guess the UK has not got the greenest fingers in Europe.

Rank Country Cut Flower Sales Potted Flower Sales Combined Sales (Euros) Combined Sales (GBP) #1 Germany 2,910,000,000 4,198,000,000 7,108,000,000 6,299,538,515 #2 France 1,831,000,000 1,268,000,000 3,099,000,000 2,746,520,801 #3 UK 1,875,000,000 791,000,000 2,666,000,000 2,362,770,073 #4 Italy 1,415,000,000 650,000,000 2,065,000,000 1,830,127,607 #5 Netherlands 956,000,000 556,000,000 1,512,000,000 1,340,025,638 #6 Spain 713,000,000 445,000,000 1,158,000,000 1,026,289,476 #7 Belgium 420,000,000 296,000,000 716,000,000 634,562,405 #8 Sweden 248,000,000 428,000,000 676,000,000 599,111,991 #9 Austria 277,000,000 315,000,000 592,000,000 524,666,122 #10 Poland 406,000,000 153,000,000 559,000,000 495,419,531 #11 Denmark 226,000,000 251,000,000 477,000,000 422,746,183 #12 Finland 195,000,000 206,000,000 401,000,000 355,660,216 #13 Greece 235,000,000 101,000,000 336,000,000 297,852,896 #14 Czech Rep. 165,000,000 123,000,000 288,000,000 255,436,764 #15 Portugal 159,000,000 106,000,000 265,000,000 235,037,300 #16 Hungary 151,000,000 111,000,000 262,000,000 232,376,500 #17 Ireland 156,000,000 69,000,000 225,000,000 199,559,972 Other (est.) 300,000,000 133,000,000 433,000,000 384,042,079

Notes: The European market for potted plants and cut flowers is according to the source report, a mature market and stable in growth it has not significantly changed in size since the report was commissioned. Currency conversions from Euro to GBP were calculated at an exchange rate of 0.8866. As of June 29, 2018.