Gardeners spend more on home improvement

New Jersey may be the garden state, but Seattle and Portland are the capitals of home gardening, according to a recent study by Scarborough.

The survey of nearly 164 million homeowners found that 63 percent of households in those cities have an active gardener in residence. Salt Lake City was a close third with 62 percent, followed by Milwaukee and Columbus, Ohio at 58 percent. The nationwide average is just less than 50 percent.

Gardeners also tend to be a little more eco-friendly. Out of those surveyed, Scarborough found that gardening homeowners are 25 percent more likely than other homeowners to pay more for environmentally friendly products and donate to environmental causes. They’re also 26 percent more likely to buy locally grown food.

And gardeners take care of their homes, inside and out. Over the last year, 31 percent of gardening homeowners put on a fresh coat of paint or installed new wallpaper, and 15 percent installed new flooring.

But the study also found that the best place to find gardeners is online. Gardeners who shop online spent an average of $910 last year, and 57 percent of web-savvy gardening homeowners used social media in the last year. Thirty-seven percent of the active Internet users surveyed spend 10 or more hours per week online.

To find out more about the survey, click here.